Two Out of Three Ain't Bad
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: 2010-2011. Dean's year with Lisa and Ben in Cicero, Indiana. No slash. No spoilers. Set in the Ramble On 'verse with the implications that come along with that.
1. Chapter 1 June 2010

**Chapter 1 June 2010**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Cicero, Indiana<strong>_

His head was pounding, and when he lifted his hand, curled into a loose fist to knock on the door, he felt the tremble in his fingers.

_The hell you doing_, he asked himself, letting his hand fall as he looked around the small porch he stood on, at the quiet, dark road, his gaze skating over the black car, parked by the kerb. The scent of flowers, from some garden bed somewhere in the neighbourhood, filled the warm night air.

_Keeping a promise._

The answer was there, a splinter in his mind. He'd waited for two weeks at Bobby's, waited and searched and called around and no one had come and there were no answers for him and time had ticked away, increasing the pressure of his grief, until he'd finally been forced into the car. He'd made a promise and the only thing he had left was to keep it.

Through the lit squares of glass in the door, he could see into the little house. _Normal_. A rug on a polished floor. A skateboard, carelessly left on its side by the wall. A kitchen, visible at the end of the short hall, a fridge with its door covered in reminders and magnets. He didn't belong in this house, this road, this place.

Taking a deep breath, he told himself it didn't matter. He'd wanted it. This … _normal_. He thought he wanted it. And he'd promised his little brother that he would quit and eat apple pie. Sam'd thought he'd wanted this too.

He knocked against the front door quickly, his pulse accelerating as he saw her come out of a room to the right, saw her expression change as she caught sight of him through the glass pane.

The door opened and Lisa stood there, looking at him, her expression a little nervous.

"Hey, Lisa," he said, forcing himself to smile.

This was it. He'd come here, not that long ago. She'd asked him to stay then but he hadn't. Back then, he'd been ground down by despair, ready to give up, but he'd still had a very small hope.

"Oh, thank god," she said. "Are you alright?"

_No_. That answer came fast too. No, he wasn't. But he couldn't say that, not yet.

"I – uh, yeah. Uh, if it's not too late, I – I think I'd like to take you up on that beer?" He didn't recognise his voice, high and broken, and his gaze dropped to the boards on the porch, swallowing hard at the tightness in his chest.

She ducked her head, smiling a little then looked back at him. "It's never too late."

Opening the door, she stepped back and he took a step forward. Her arms were around him before he could take another, holding him tightly and he slid his around her, feeling them tighten involuntarily. Behind the walls where he kept the things he couldn't deal with, a surge of emotion flexed and he felt the tentative tentacles of the pain that'd been waiting for him, outriders of a grief that was going to drown him if he let it all out.

Her hair smelled clean and of some kind of fruit, soft and silky against his cheek and neck. He closed his eyes, forcing memory back, forcing it down and away. It wasn't right, but he needed this, this connection, this closeness to someone. Needed to it to feel alive. Needed it to remind himself that he hadn't gone done into the hole with his brother, not dead, not living.

* * *

><p>Lisa closed her eyes tightly as she felt a shudder ripple through the man in her arms. "Sshh, it's okay," she murmured against his neck, her fingers stroking the skin above his collar. "It's going to be okay."<p>

_Look, I have no illusions, okay? I know the life that I live, I know how that's gonna end for me. Whatever. I'm okay with that. But I wanted you to know…that when I do picture myself happy…it's with you. And the kid._

His face, when he'd said that to her, had scared and exhilarated her, both at the same time. When he'd left, only the scared part had remained. For him. For herself. For the world, when she'd replayed the whole of the conversation back to herself.

She couldn't remember how long she'd held a torch for him – since they'd met, she thought; a tall young man, full of cocky attitude and secrets, he'd seduced her easily over beers and games of pool. Her type, she'd thought back then. They'd spent a weekend together and then he'd disappeared, and she'd thought it'd been for good.

She'd hoped and prayed that the test results would not match the sample she'd given them. Flip Ryeson had been long gone as well, but she hadn't given him more than a few minutes thought. Dean had been impossible to forget. But Ben wasn't his son.

Behind her, she heard a noise and Dean straightened, his gaze, she saw, going past her.

"Hey, Ben."

"Hey."

Lisa heard the uncertain wariness in her son's voice and she stepped back, turning to look over shoulder. "You remember Dean, don't you, Ben?"

He nodded, the uncertainty vanishing, the wariness remaining. "Sure."

"How 'bout setting the table for dinner," she suggested, looking back to Dean. "Can you stay? It's, um, not much but –"

He nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to, if it's – uh – no trouble."

She saw his gaze return to Ben, the boy turning away and walking to the dining room door to the right. "It's no trouble."

* * *

><p>Following her into the kitchen, Dean belatedly registered the smell of roasting meat and vegetables. His palms felt sweaty and he wiped them discreetly against the side of his jeans, looking around. The galley kitchen was small, the counters clean, a little cluttered with small appliances.<p>

"Nice place," he said, stopping and leaning against the narrow counter.

Opposite him, the fridge door held a calendar and notepad, photographs and reminder notices for utilities, dental appointments, school functions. One of the photographs caught his eye and he leaned forward a little, staring at it. He was in it. Standing next to Ben, looking down at the boy. She must've taken it, he thought, the last time he'd seen them. After the changelings.

Lisa opened the oven, her hands enveloped in thick mitts, and took out the pot roast, glancing sideways at him. "It's home. Beer's in the fridge."

"Thanks." He stepped forward and opened the door, pulling out two automatically then turning to her, the bottles lifted in a tacit query.

Nodding at him, Lisa closed the oven and turned back to the food.

"Table's set," Ben said from the doorway. "For three, right?"

"Right," Lisa told him.

"Can I help?" Dean asked, backing up against the fridge door as Ben walked past him to drain the boiled peas.

"No," Lisa said, looking over her shoulder with a slight smile. "Dining room's the door to the right, just make yourself comfortable. This won't take a minute."

He sidled out of the room and walked to the dining room. It was small, the table and four chairs nearly maxing out the available space. He looked at the settings, one on each side of the square table and swallowed a mouthful of the beer. Beige placemats with a border of autumn leaves, plain white china, plain stainless cutlery lined up to either side. Ordinary.

_Normal._

He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten off china. Sitting down in the chair that faced the window, he took another swallow to drive down the restless surge of tangled emotion that threatened to break through.

He'd told Lisa that she and Ben were the ones he thought of when he'd imagined himself happy. He still didn't know why he'd said it. Trying to make himself believe it? Trying to have a single connection to something before he became nothing more than a conduit for an archangel? He didn't know. He hadn't thought of her at all when he got out of Hell. Or since. Not until … but that was something he also wasn't thinking of.

"I hope you like pot roast," Lisa said, carrying in the dish and setting it on the mat in the middle of the table. "Kind of our Sunday night special here."

"Uh, yeah," he said, looking up at her, forcing his expression into a smile. He put down the beer and shifted slightly in the chair. "Whatever's good."

Ben set dishes of vegetables on the table around the roast and sat down, Lisa carving and serving portions onto each of their plates.

Was he supposed to say something, he wondered, picking up the knife and fork and looking down at the food on his plate. Supposed to hold up his end of a normal conversation? He couldn't think of anything to say.

"So … uh … Ben," he started, looking across the table at the boy. "You in high school yet?"

Ben stared at him. "I'm ten," he said, a slight edge to his voice.

"Right, uh, sorry," Dean said, looking back down at the food in front of him. "Ten, wow."

"I've got a couple more years before I have to worry about grades and girlfriends," Lisa interjected, smiling at her son.

"Mom, c'mon," Ben said, ducking his head, his fork stabbing at a piece of meat.

"Homework finished?"

"Mo-om!"

"You know the deal," she said. "School night and everything ready for tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

Keeping his eyes fixed on his plate, Dean only half-heard the conversation, his stomach churning with every mouthful of food he swallowed. Who the hell was he kidding? He didn't belong here, that much was clear to him. Couldn't imagine himself being able to fit in here, to talk about anything … normal.

"You want some dessert?" Lisa interrupted his thoughts and he looked up at her, then down at his plate, seeing it was empty.

Ben got up and cleared the dishes, taking the plates to the kitchen and depositing them with a resounding clatter into the sink.

"Uh, no," Dean said, uncertain of what he'd missed. "I'm good."

"Another beer?"

"Yeah," he agreed quickly, looking at the empty bottle. "Thanks."

She got up and he half-rose from his chair as well, sinking back down when she turned away.

His throat was tight and sore, his head still pounding. There were too many things he was holding in, forcing back, and he wondered bleakly how long he was going to be able to keep it together before those things came out.

* * *

><p>"What happened?" Lisa asked, her voice soft and Dean closed his eyes, leaning back in the armchair, fighting down a bubble of inappropriate laughter as he wondered where the hell to start.<p>

Ben had gone to his room, and he'd followed Lisa into the small living room, taking the glass of whiskey from her gratefully and dropping into the chair. The alcohol had burned down his throat, clearing a path through the jammed-up memories and settling with fiery heat in his stomach and he'd looked around the small room, seeing it without paying much attention. The sofa and armchairs faced a wall unit, tv and stereo the focus of the room. On the walls, photographs and a few prints hung, adding a little interest and colour to the earth-toned walls.

Looking down, he'd wondered if he should've taken his boots off before coming in here, the mud from Bobby's yard still adhering to the soles and dropping off in little chunks on the long-pile white rug under them.

He didn't know what he could tell her. Didn't know what she could hear, without deciding he was a nut and calling the guys in the white coats. The devil had risen and the countdown to Armageddon had begun and he and Sam had just gotten in the way of it, no plan, not really, just a blind faith in each other.

"You remember what I said, a while ago?" he asked, opening his eyes and looking at her.

She nodded. "You said it was going to get bad."

"Yeah." Leaning forward, he tipped his glass up, the pungent liquid leaving another heated trail down his throat, making it easier to breathe. To talk. "Sam and me, we got in the way of it."

Lisa's expression was uncertain, and he drew in a deep breath. "It's – it's a long story, Lise," he said. "Long and bloody and now – now it's over."

Was it, he wondered? Over? Cas'd said that he'd gotten what he wanted, no paradise, just more of the same. The balance restored. The monsters weren't gone. Demons still broke free of Hell and the angels who'd been responsible for the whole goddamned mess were still out there. How the hell could it be over?

"So … we're alright?" she asked, her eyes on him.

"Yeah, we're alright."

He didn't think he was ever going to be alright. That didn't matter. He would deal with his problems the way he always had.

"Where's Sam?"

"Sam –" The words he'd meant to say filled his throat and stopped there, suffocating him. Sam took the devil back to the pit. Sam gave up his life and soul to hold an archangel and keep him from destroying the world. Sam …

He hunched forward, his muscles getting tighter and tighter as he tried to hold all that back.

"Dean?"

She was beside him suddenly and it was all he could do not to flinch from her touch, too raw and bleeding to stand it. He screwed his eyes shut, his glass hitting the low table with a hard thud, both hands clenching as he tried to sit with it. Deal with it.

_Accept it._

"Sam … Sam's gone," he croaked, the admission coming through his closed teeth.

"I'm sorry," Lisa said, her arms tightening him. "Dean, I'm so sorry."

Grinding his teeth together, forcing the pain to stay inside, he barely heard her. Down deep, where he lived and breathed, where the past and present mingled, all one time to him, the longing for someone else was almost as agonising as the knowledge that Sam was not dead, not at peace or safe or at rest. His brother was with the devil and the person he needed had gone as well. Leaving him alone. Leaving him with grief that he wasn't sure he was going to be able to bear.

* * *

><p>The bunched and solid steel rigidity in him slowly ebbed away, and Lisa drew in a deep breath as she felt the muscle under her cheek become softer, pliable again.<p>

She'd met Sam twice, once when they'd turned up at her house with Ben after she'd watched the changeling burn up on her living room floor, and the second time when he and Dean had stopped by before heading out of town. Both times had been fleeting and her attention had been focussed on Dean. She had an incomplete impression of a tall, young man, a thick fringe of hair falling over his forehead and rather lonely hazel eyes looking at her from under it. Both times Sam had withdrawn after a few minutes, giving his brother privacy. There had been something between the two of them, she'd recognised, visible even in those brief glimpses, some solid feeling she hadn't been able to figure out.

That they'd been close didn't seem to be in doubt. She tried to put herself in his place, imagining losing someone so close to her. It didn't work. She couldn't really bring herself to even visualise that kind of loss.

"Dean?"

"Uh … yeah," he said, a shiver going through his frame as he lifted his head. "Sorry."

"Don't – don't say that," she said, pressing closer to him. "I asked you to stay, once before –"

His face was pale, the freckles that had so charmed her when she'd first met him, standing out over his nose and cheekbones against that drawn pallor. It was hard to see the expression in his eyes; they seemed dark and shuttered, looking out at her without her being able to see what he was thinking.

"– you could stay now, if you wanted to," she continued, more carefully. "For as long as you wanted."

He looked away and she saw his mouth compress into a tense line, his throat work as he swallowed.

"Thanks, I – I – that'd be good," he said, his voice harsh. He cleared it, turning back to her. "I don't want to mess up your life, Lisa."

"You won't," she said. "You couldn't."

* * *

><p>The house had two bedrooms but he'd opted for the sofa. It wasn't quite long enough to accommodate him, his feet dangling off the end, next to the arm. Sleep was a distant land, too far away to see and after he'd lain there and stared at the ceiling for an hour, he sat up, listening to the silence in the house, trying not to hear the silence in his head.<p>

_Once the Cage is shut, you can't go poking at it, Dean. It's too risky. _

_Fuck that_, he thought, getting to his feet. His duffel and Sam's satchel sat in the hall. He walked to the satchel and pulled out the laptop.

_There's no way into the Cage, Dean, Cas'd said. Michael was the only one powerful enough to break through to the ninth level, and he's gone._

_He's right, boy, Bobby'd added. I've never even heard of anything being able to break in there, and if the angels can't …_

_There's always a way, right, Bobby? he'd said in return, his frustration rising. Always a way. Just had to find it._

He cleared a space on the low table and walked back to the kitchen, going to the cupboard he'd seen Lisa take the whiskey bottle from and pulling it out. It was almost half-full and he picked up his glass from the drainer and carried both back to the living room, sitting down and pouring himself a double with one hand as he opened the computer with the other.

There was always a way. He couldn't sit here, numb and lost, knowing what his brother was going through and not try to find it.

The curtains covering the windows were edged with grey when he finally gave up, turning to the bottle and finding it empty, the sight amping his fury and despair. Around the corners of his mind, his blocks and barricades, the walls and armour he'd spent a lifetime building, were bulging and flexing. Grief hammered at him and he threw back his head, the tendons in his neck standing out, the muscles of his jaw bunched as he tried to force it down.

They were gone and they weren't coming back.

_Deal with it. Accept it. Let it in._

It came like the tide, rising and filling him until he couldn't breathe and he shook with silent sobs, his tears falling hot and fast onto his arms as he muffled the sounds with them, his lungs struggling to get air, his heart solidified into ice, heavy, unliving, freezing him from the inside out.

* * *

><p>For the next week, his days and nights followed much the same pattern. Through the day, he was as polite as he knew how to be, he tried his best to talk, and smile, and be involved with Lisa and Ben. He protected the house, as well as he could, a devil's trap on the stoop; hex bags secreted in the walls; bags of salt in the kitchen and garage. He cleaned up as much as he could, helped out where he could, kept himself as busy as he could, odd jobs, fixing things around the place.<p>

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Lisa and Ben knew now to just leave him be if he was silent, or if his eyes had become dark with a memory, or if he took out the bottle of whiskey before midday.

Every night, he woke sometime past midnight, sweating, exhausted from fighting against the grip of the latest nightmare, not sure if the screams in his head had come out. He would go to the bathroom, douse his face in water, dry off and go to the kitchen. He was drinking a lot and it wasn't enough. It didn't seem to matter how long he cried, how much he grieved; the desolation in him was self-replenishing, ever-flowing. He wasn't letting go, he knew that. He couldn't let go. He couldn't find a way to say goodbye, to remember his little brother without the pain. And he knew why.

Sam wasn't dead. He was gone, but not at peace.

Far from it. The certainty of his torture was a knife point in Dean's heart and mind, in his soul. It twisted savagely if he let his thoughts get anywhere near his brother. But the promise kept him bound and gagged. He couldn't think of Sam without torment. He couldn't let him go without thinking of him.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Ten days<strong>_

Lisa walked quickly along the pavement, groceries held under one arm. The day was warm and still, clouds piling up in the distance. She felt a restlessness, like an unreachable itch, that had made her morning classes almost impossible. She shifted the weight of her purse higher onto her shoulder, digging through the pockets for her keys.

When she entered the house, the first thing she noticed was its dimness. The curtains had been drawn, the blinds shut in the rooms. In contrast to the warmth outside, it felt cool, almost cold. She felt her heart sink, realising it was one of Dean's bad days.

He had good days and bad days. Days when the whiskey didn't come out until after dinner. Days when it made an appearance before lunch. Most of the time it didn't matter which kind of day he was having, she couldn't see the man she thought he was through the thick shroud of despair that seemed to live in his eyes.

Not the secretive but cheerful young man he'd been at nineteen. Not the man she'd met eight years later, more secrets and a past full of pain that he wouldn't say anything about. The Dean Winchester who lived in her house now was completely different.

She listened for a moment, but she couldn't hear anything. She unpacked the groceries quickly, smoothing out the bag and folding it, putting it into the drawer. Then she walked slowly through the dining room and into the living room. Dean sat silently in the armchair, his hand holding an empty glass, the room faintly redolent with sharp scent of the whiskey. His eyes were open, but he was staring into the past, not seeing the present. She sighed and backed slowly out, her emotions veering wildly between anger and an aching sadness.

He was struggling with his grief, she knew. He spent hours and hours on the battered laptop he'd brought with him, searching for something that he wouldn't tell her about. He'd ordered dozens of books, from around the world, one corner of the dining room piled with them, their spines turned to the wall, their contents shocking and malevolent. She hated them in her house and he kept promising to move them to the car's trunk but somehow he never did.

He slept in the living room, the little he did sleep, uncomfortably on the sofa which wasn't long enough for him. His face was hollowed out and too pale, the shadow of his stubble giving him a look of careless disregard … for himself … and, she thought, for her.

He'd fixed things that the landlord wouldn't get around to, on his good days. She kept thinking he might getting through it, on those days, might be letting go, moving on, all the clichés for grief and its processes. Then it would change and he'd be moody and silent and the level in the bottle would drop overnight. She wasn't worried about him, at least, not as a threat to Ben or herself. But he wasn't here, most of the time, even when he was and she'd begun to ask herself why she was putting her son through this. Why she was putting herself through it.

* * *

><p>As she withdrew from the room, Dean's eyes focussed and he turned his head, following her quiet progress back to the kitchen. He knew she was angry, knew she was disappointed. Knew that he had to do something – anything – to change what was going on because sooner or later she was going to have to give up on him. He was slightly amazed it hadn't happened already.<p>

They were alone in the house. Ben had gone to stay over at a friend's house. He put down the glass and stood up slowly, his muscles and joints aching from the length of time he'd been sitting there.

Walking to the kitchen, he found her chopping vegetables at the counter, the knife thudding into the chopping board. He leaned against the other end of the counter, watching her, wondering vaguely if she was visualising his neck under the sharp blade.

"Lise?"

Lisa turned around, looking at him. Her heart contracted as she saw his expression. He was so lost, he was so alone even here, even with her beside him. Her anger vanished with the sight of him. How could she maintain anger at him, knowing what he was going through?

"Hey, Dean." She put down the knife and walked to him. "How're you doing?"

He gave her a half-smile, one that didn't reach his eyes, but was better than nothing, better than the cold, remote looks she sometimes got.

"Not great, but I'll live," he said honestly. He'd held so much back from her, there so much unsaid, that he tried to be honest about this, his day to day feelings, the thoughts he could get out.

"Can I do anything to help?" She stepped closer to him, putting her hands on his hips, lifting her face to look into his. "Please. Tell me what to do? Let me help you with this."

"I – no, it's not - no." Dean looked down at her, putting his arms around her, drawing her closer. She felt real. Solid. Warm and alive. He needed to feel that, against the cold that seemed to be all he had inside. She reached up and pressed her lips against his, sliding her hands up to his shoulders, to curl around his neck.

He knew what she was asking, what she was offering. For a painfully long moment, he tried to kiss her back, tried to feel the faintest vestige of interest in her soft mouth, her smooth skin. But he had to pull back, grimacing inwardly as he saw the confusion in her face.

He was dust and ashes inside. No heat of desire could rise, no flicker of lust touched him. He couldn't explain that lack of feeling. Couldn't find the words to describe the way he wasn't registering anything.

"I'm sorry, Lise. I can't." He stepped back from her, as she stared at him.

He tapped his chest, over his heart. "There's nothing here."

She nodded, her gaze dropping. "Even if what – even if you don't feel –" she started, then stopped, lifting her face reluctantly to his. "That sofa's too short for you."

He looked back in the direction of the living room, one brow lifted slightly. "It's okay."

"Dean, maybe it would help if you – maybe the nightmares would stop if you had someone close, in the night," she said. "I'm not saying … look, it's a big bed. There's room for us both without … and it might help, don't you think?"

Watching his face smooth out, his eyes shutter, she felt a peculiar tightness in her chest. The things she'd thought when she'd opened her front door and seen him standing there, none of them had happened, and while she'd recognised that those expectations had been … unrealistic … she had hoped that things would get better.

Taking a deeper breath, she said, "Look, I'm not trying to jump your bones and I don't want to put more pressure on you than you already have. It was just an idea."

Dean looked down at her. He doubted it would do as much as she hoped for, but if it made her feel better, then he could accommodate that. The sofa wasn't helping much with sleeping anyway.

"No, I mean, yeah," he said slowly. "If you're sure."

A flush of relief filled her. "It's worth a shot, right?"


	2. Chapter 2 July 2010

**Chapter 2 July 2010**

* * *

><p>Dean sat at the dining table, staring moodily at the wall. Next to his elbow sat a pile of books and pads, filled with his uneven printing.<p>

_Nothing. _

_Another dead end. Another set of lies,_ he thought, feeling his anger and frustration rise. _There had to be something, somewhere. How the hell could he find it, trapped here in suburbia?_

He stood up abruptly, and crossed the room, then stopped at the doorway.

_The hell you think you're going?_ What did he think he could do? The inability to find a course of action, to find a lead, a clue, even an intangible gut feeling about what to do next was driving him blindly, like a wild animal being driven before a storm. He looked at the smooth wall next to the door, and his fist slammed out suddenly, involuntarily, punching through the thin drywall into the cavity. He looked at his knuckles, raw but not bleeding, without expression.

He needed a drink. He wrenched open the door and headed for the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Lisa looked up as she heard the bang from the dining room. She glanced at Ben, who was sitting on the sofa, hunched over the low table, his homework spread out around him. He looked back at her, his expression of nervousness a mirror of her own.<p>

They listened to Dean's heavy footsteps as he thumped across the hall, both focussing on what they'd been doing, their heads bent over the table, when he slammed back through the dining room and came into the living room. Looking up, she glanced involuntarily at the bottle, still sitting by the armchair. There was about a third left in it.

Dean's gaze followed hers and he walked to the chair, swiping the bottle from the end table and swinging around for the kitchen without so much as an acknowledgement for either of them.

Lisa took a deep breath. This was completely out of hand. Dean's frustrations had been rising over the past couple of weeks and she felt like a prisoner in her home, a hostage to whatever emotions he felt. If it had just been her … she bowed her head, admitting that she might have waited him out. But it wasn't just her. It was taking its toll on Ben as well, and that was more than she could accept.

"Can you finish your homework in your room, Ben? I think I need to talk to him." Her gaze flicked to the sliver of kitchen she could see through the mostly-closed door, Dean's back to her as he banged around the sink. Ben nodded, gathering his books and papers, tucking his laptop under his arm.

"Sure, Mom."

When she heard his bedroom door close, she stood up and walked into the kitchen.

"Dean."

He was standing by the window, a glass dangling loosely between his fingers, the bottle sitting on the drainer beside him. He stared out, looking at the grey clouds scudding across the sky, the lush, overgrown grass of the yard, the slick black asphalt of the road, as the rain thrummed down.

"Dean." Lisa walked to the counter, moving into his peripheral vision.

"What?"

Moistening her lips nervously, she shut away what she'd wanted and focussed on what she had to say. "I've had enough."

He turned his head then, his eyes remote, his face expressionless. "Yeah, I would think you have."

His words, without feeling or regret, were a slap. She felt as if she'd handed him something precious, something important to her, and he'd dropped it. Thrown it.

"Is that it? Is that all you've got to say?" Her anger rose, at his careless disregard for her feelings, her home, her family, and in the back of her mind she wondered why she'd let it go on so long.

He shrugged, turning back to the window. "It's not exactly unexpected, Lisa."

"Have you _ever_ cared about us, Dean? Why did you come here?" she asked, her throat closing. "How did you think we could ever help you when you never let us in?"

"I care about you, Lisa, and about Ben. I do." He looked down into his glass. He cared. Not enough, maybe, not for them, but he did. "I didn't expect you to help me; I knew from the start that nothing was going to be able to do that."

"Then why did you come here? Why are you still here?" She folded her arms over her chest, a chill deepening in her, matching the grey conditions outside.

He lifted his head, turning a little to look at her as he weighed his answer. "I don't know," he said finally, unable to bring himself to tell her the truth, not on this question.

She shook her head. "Why can't you let him go, Dean? He's gone; you can't move on, you can't do anything until you do." She felt tears starting to fill her eyes, blinking them back. "You're dying inside, Dean. You're shutting down and getting more and more distant every day."

He wanted to laugh, choking it back. He was already dead inside. Famine had said it – had seen it. He'd thought he'd had another chance – but no, that'd gone too. Pushing those memories aside, he scowled down at the floor.

"I can't let him go, Lisa." He looked away from her, his voice rising. "Don't you understand? It was my job to protect him!" He set the glass onto the counter and turned to face her, his eyes growing colder and darker. "Fuck, that was my only job, since I was a kid – protect my family! And I couldn't."

He took a step toward her, shaking his head. "This is on me, it's all on me. Sam – my father – none of it would've happened if –"

She stared at him, not sure what he was talking about, seeing the rage and frustration in the tension in his body, the bones showing through the skin of his knuckles as his hands curled into fists.

"No one will deal," he said, his voice thundering in the small room, one fist striking the table and making the condiments jump. "I got him back before, made a deal, he was okay – that yellow-eyed sonofabitch was wrong – but I can't find a way."

"Dean, I don't understand –"

"He's not dead, he's –" He cut himself off abruptly, unwilling to tell her the truth. "I can't rest, I can't say to myself, oh, well at least he's at peace now. Because that's a lie."

Lisa shrank back from him a little, the blistering sarcasm in his voice striking at her.

"I have to –" he hesitated, his brain frantically churning through alternative explanations.

"I find a way to set him to rest, before it's too late," he continued, twisting away, pacing down the length of the small, oblivious to the effect he was having on her. "And I can't find anything that is strong enough to do it, not in the demonologies, not in the records I've been able to find, not from the angels."

Turning back suddenly, he looked at her, his face screwing up. "So what do I do, Lisa? Tell me, what do I do!?"

Standing in front of him, Lisa felt her heart jump at his question. She was afraid, not for herself, but for him, and she was afraid of the world he lived in with its angels and demons, monsters and ghosts. She couldn't understand what he meant and the way he kept stopping and starting made her wonder what he wasn't telling her. "You can't go on like this, Dean."

"I have to go on like this; there's nothing else I can do." He closed his eyes.

"Torturing yourself can't help. Not in finding a way to put Sam to rest, not in staying strong enough and clear enough to do something if you did find a way."

He was silent.

"I understand that you need to keep trying, of course I do. But you think this is the way? You're angry, you're drinking to forget, to blur the edges, you can't control the pain and you can't stop it from spilling over everything, over us."

"Do you have a solution or are you just going to tell me things I already know?"

She flinched at his tone, her mouth compressing to a thin line. "You want me to kick you out, Dean? Is that what you're after? Some sort of no-blame clause so that you don't have to feel bad about leaving?"

To her surprise, she saw a reaction. "That's it? Why? Nothing's holding you here; you can go anytime you want to. It's not like you're trying or anything."

She turned on her heel and walked out.

* * *

><p>Dean sat down at the small table slowly. She was right. He wasn't trying, at least not as hard as he would be if the situation were any other way but the way it was. He looked at the glass on the table next to him. It suddenly didn't seem to be such a good idea to use it to block the thoughts and feelings. He leaned back in the chair, and closed his eyes.<p>

He was at a dead end. He had literally no other place to go, no other leads to follow. He couldn't give up, he knew that. But he could try to reacquire the patience he'd once lectured Sam on, when the road appeared to be leading nowhere. He could pull his weight and face up to the responsibilities he'd taken on when he'd shown up here, bound to a promise, but nonetheless wanting the comfort she could give him, the family he thought he'd longed for.

Hunching over the table, he rubbed his hand over his face tiredly. She was right, he thought again. He wasn't even trying to try. He wasn't trying to do right by her, or by his promise to his brother. He was just flailing around the dark, angry and frustrated and tormented by the way things were.

_We've got nothing, Sam. Nothing, okay? So you know the only thing I can do? I can work on the car._ The memory of those words brushed his consciousness, reminding him of another time he'd been stuck in limbo; no leads to follow, no vengeance to be taken, no clear path of action to embark on.

Right now, the only thing he could do was to get his shit together and do what he could. Make it right for Lisa and Ben. Make his priorities their care and safety; his hunt for a way to save Sam would have to become part-time.

He picked up the bottle and the glass, carrying them to the sink. Tossed the mouthful of whiskey left in the glass into it and replaced the bottle in the cupboard.

Walking back through the dining room, he slowed as he entered the living room doorway. Lisa stood by the windows, her face wet with tears, her arms wrapped around herself.

"I'm sorry. You're right. I haven't been trying."

She didn't move or respond and he walked across the room to her. "What do you want from us, Dean?"

He pulled in a deep breath, wondering how to answer that. Someplace to rest? A part of the dreams he'd kept hidden away, even from himself, for too many years? A way out? He was keeping a promise.

"I don't know," he said and she looked up at him, her gaze meeting his.

* * *

><p>It was him again, she thought, the cold, remote rage gone. Her stomach was filled with butterflies. He didn't know? Was that why it was so easy for him to lash out? To shut them out?<p>

"I know I don't want to leave, Lise," he said, ducking his head as if he'd read her thoughts. "I want to try again. If you'll let me."

That would be a mistake, the cool and often judgemental voice in her head told her immediately. She thought it might've been her mother's voice. He's left you twice before, without even a backwards glance. Don't you remember how long it took to see other men, afterwards? It could've been right, she thought. That voice. It could be a mistake to try and make this work, somehow, anyhow possible. Looking at him, his expression slightly wary, waiting for her, waiting for her to say something, she found she didn't care if it was a mistake.

""Okay, Dean," she told him, trying to hide the tremor of uncertainty in her voice. He took a step closer and put his arms around her, enfolding her in them. Leaning against him, feeling his cheek against her hair, she acknowledged meekly to herself that she would give anything – almost anything at all – to have this. "Okay."

* * *

><p>The sky was a pale, washed-out blue, the sunshine thin and watery after the last shower. Lisa stood on the porch, watching Dean load his tools into the lock box in the tray of the pickup. He closed the lid and walked around the back to the driver's seat, lifting his hand in a wave as he started the engine of the Ford, then twisting around to reverse back into the street.<p>

It had been two weeks since they'd had the fight. She shook her head slightly at the way he'd changed since then. He still had nightmares, she knew that. He'd wake in the bed they shared, a scream clenched behind his teeth, his breath rasping in and out of his throat, sweat soaking through the pillows and sheets, sometimes enough to wake her as it cooled and chilled the linen.

He was still drinking, but much less now, just a couple after dinner, usually. He could still sit silent, his eyes dark and his face brooding, but now if she or Ben caught his attention, he'd push his dark thoughts away, and smile at them, shaking off the memory or thought or feeling determinedly and getting up to join in with whatever they were doing. It made a huge difference. It made all the difference.

The construction job had come up last week, and he'd taken it, getting the second-hand Ford, putting the lockbox in the back, spending the last weekend under it and around it and over it, tuning and adjusting and making sure that it was running as well as it could. The Impala had gone into the garage, and Dean had covered it with a tarp, hiding it completely.

Lying with him every night was her own peculiar torture. Her memories of being with him, of them being together, making love, touching, kissing, tasting, laughing in bed, were close and unbearably tempting at night. She didn't want anyone else. But although he was gentle, and caring and considerate of her, he hadn't shown any signs that he was feeling anything more, wanting anything more. They lay together each night, and slept, and if he knew she often lay awake, her breathing soft and light as she pushed away those old memories, he didn't say anything, didn't allude to it at all.

Ben came out beside her, his backpack hanging from one hand.

"See you later, Mom."

"Have a good day at school, Ben. Oh, and don't be late today, we're going to the movies later."

"Sure."

She watched him walking down the path, grabbing his bike from the side of the garage and swinging onto it, peddling faster as he cleared the gate and turned onto the road.

She sighed. Things were looking up, so why did she feel as if it wasn't real?

* * *

><p>"C'mon, Mom, let's vote," Ben pleaded, staring at the giant-sized poster of a man in a red plastic suit with wide eyes.<p>

"I'm outnumbered," Lisa countered, her irritation carefully hidden as she slid a sideways glance at the man standing beside her.

"Isn't that the risk of democracy?" Ben said, and Lisa smothered a giggle as she saw Dean's attention sharpen on her son.

"I don't mind," Dean said, looking at the summer's offerings.

Lisa sighed inwardly. He might not say it, but out of two action and two kids' movies and what appeared to be a women-only film with Julia Roberts, she knew he wasn't going to enjoy himself if she forced them to watch what she would've preferred.

"Fine," she said to Ben, handing him a handful of notes, and looking at the ticket counter. "Three for Ironman 2 and bring back the change."

Ben spun around and raced across the carpeted lobby before she could change her mind.

* * *

><p>Dean stared at the flashing lights and milling crowd uneasily. It'd been awhile since he'd been in a place like this, surrounded by people whose only purpose in being here was to have a couple of hours of escape from their normal lives.<p>

"Hey, you alright?" Lisa asked him, and he turned, looking down at her.

"Yeah, just – uh – not so used to this anymore," he said with a shrug. "Last place Sam and me went to see a movie was a fifty-seat movie house in some tiny town I don't even remember."

"What'd you see?" she asked.

"Uh, _Shooter_," he told her, the memory suddenly vivid in his mind. It'd been a few weeks before Cold Oak. Somewhere in Ohio, he thought.

She smiled. "So I'm guessing Ironman 2 is okay?"

"Sure," he said, turning away as Ben returned flourishing three tickets. "You want some sodas? And, uh, popcorn?"

Nodding, Lisa watched him cross to the snack counter. He wasn't like anyone else she'd ever met, she thought. Was that why she'd never forgotten him?

* * *

><p>"Man, wasn't it awesome when he fought all those 'droids!" Ben exclaimed from the back seat for the fourth time.<p>

"I dunno, kind'a liked the bit where he was racing better," Dean said, glancing at the boy in the rear-view mirror. "Unbelievable, but that's the point, right?"

Lisa let out a little exhale.

"This is a cool car," Ben said, stroking the upholstery of the back seat.

The pickup had a bench seat and could've taken all of them, but Dean'd taken the Impala out for the night's outing, telling himself she needed to run, every now and then. His hands slid lightly around the wheel as he glanced back again.

"Yeah," Dean agreed readily. "It was my dad's car. He gave it to me when I was eighteen."

"Really?"

"Yeah." He blinked as the sea of lights ahead of him blurred for a moment. "You, uh, wanna learn to work on the cars?"

"Hell, yeah!"

"Ben!"

"Sorry! But, uh, yeah – yes, thanks." Ben met Dean's eyes in the mirror, the boy's wide and shining.

"On the weekend," Dean promised, sliding a sideways look at Lisa.

She saw the look, glanced behind her and back to him, giving him a conspiratorial wink.

For a second, the moment between them was frozen, time stopped. He was driving with a pretty woman and her boy, coming back from a pleasant evening, and in that moment nothing at all existed of his previous life. Even the car, filled for him with memories, could've been just his, no load of weapons in the trunk, no underlying traces of gun oil soaked into the carpets. Just his car. Just his girl. Just his family.

The disorienting moment passed and he turned his gaze back to the road. A lotta guys out there would give their left nut to be where he was right now, he considered, watching the traffic. A _lotta_ guys.

* * *

><p>They got back to the house after ten and Ben shot down the hall when they came through the door.<p>

"Brush your teeth, Ben," Lisa called after him, hanging up her coat and scarf on the hooks behind the front door.

Dean walked into the living room, picking up the remote and flicking the TV on absently. He settled himself on the sofa as the late news came on.

Ben stuck his head through the doorway a few minutes later, his expression almost shy.

"'Night, Dean."

"'Night, Ben." He looked over and smiled at him, an unfamiliar warmth briefly filling his chest. His memories of bedtime as a child had been varied. He tried to keep it the same for Sammy, when his brother had been young, reading somewhere that routines were important to little kids. The rest of their lives had zero stability or consistency, most of the time.

* * *

><p>Following her son down the hall, Lisa said goodnight at his bedroom door then continued on to her bedroom. She slipped out of the dress she'd worn out, and pulled on her nightgown, drawing a thin turquoise satin robe over it. She brushed out her hair, listening to the sounds of the taps in the bathroom. When they stopped, she got up and walked into the bathroom, glancing at the lid – up again –in vague irritation.<p>

_Well_, she thought to herself, _you wondered what it'd be like to have a man in the house, and now you know_.

Putting the lid down on the way to the vanity, she cleaned off her makeup and brushed her teeth, wondering exactly what Dean was intending to teach Ben about cars the next day. He was good with him, she thought, leaning closer to the sink to spit out the minty foam. Patient. Kind, nearly all of the time. Ready to listen to whatever Ben had to say. Was he aware that he would be a good father? Was _being_ a good father? She wasn't so sure about that.

For all her griping about the movie, it'd been a good evening, she decided, drying her face on the towel and looking at herself in the mirror. He was pulling his weight, in the house, with the bills, and giving Ben a great role model. There was only one other thing she wanted from him, but she thought she could settle for what she had. Two out of three wasn't bad.

Walking down the hall, Lisa located Dean by the sound of the TV in the quiet house.

* * *

><p>"Hey," she said as she sat on the sofa next to him, tucking her legs beneath her and looking at the evening anchor. "What's going on in the country?"<p>

"Just the usual bullshit," he said, turning to look at her. "Nothing … uh …"

Whatever it was he'd been about to say dried up in his mouth as he found himself noticing the way her breasts curved out against the thin material of her robe.

He looked back at the TV, swallowing. For months, he hadn't let himself go near the thought of being with someone, memory too powerful. There'd been little time and no inclination and he'd gotten used to taking care of himself when arousal came on the tail end of dreams or caught him by surprise.

He slowly turned his head again, letting his eyes drift over the smooth curves of breast, hip and legs next to him. The stirring he could feel, in body and mind, felt like a betrayal, and a sudden flush of anger hit him. It hadn't been _him_ who'd disappeared and never come back. The angel had told him there'd been no reason for her not coming back and he'd believed and everything he'd thought – had wanted – had been shattered. Gone was gone. He'd made a promise. This was his life now.

Lisa turned to look at him. "You okay?"

"Yeah." His mouth quirked upward, mocking himself. "Yeah, I'm okay."

He wasn't, but then again he hadn't been … okay … for quite some time. He wasn't ever going to get what he wanted. All those things were off the table. But, he thought, adjusting his position on the sofa uncomfortably, maybe it was time he let go of them and looked for what he needed.

His breathing had quickened a little, his heart was beating faster. After so many weeks of not wanting, of saying no to the little advances she'd made to him, he wondered how the hell he was going to convince her that he'd changed his mind. Or that she'd changed his mind.

"Uh … Lise?"

"Yeah?" She was watching the TV, and half-turned her head. "What?"

He reached to touch her face before he lost his nerve. His hand gently brushed her cheek, fingers curving around her jaw. She turned her head, her eyes opening wide as she looked at him and saw desire in his face.

"Dean?"

He leaned towards her, relieved as she wriggled closer, her eyes fluttering shut. His mouth touched hers, and he felt a surge of desire fill him as he tasted the barely-remembered sweetness of her mouth. She leaned into him, her arms slipping around his neck, her breasts pressing against his chest, and she shivered as his hands slid down her back, following the curve of her hips, running down her thighs, and then back up, pushing the hem of her nightgown higher.

Deepening the kiss, his hands pulled her around to straddle his lap, stroking the length of her thighs, spread to either side of him. She moved a little on him, and he could feel the heat between her legs, covering him, through the layers of clothing that still separated them, arousal growing when she moaned softly in her throat, the reverberation against his lips. She lifted her head, rolling it back as his hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs rubbing over the nipples.

* * *

><p>Lisa felt herself trembling, caught in a whirlwind of sensation. She gasped when his hands dropped back to her thighs, sliding around and under them, and cupping her ass. He leaned forward, and tightened his grip, pulling her closer to him as he stood slowly. Wrapping her legs around him, she belatedly realised what he was trying to do.<p>

"Don't want to be caught here like a couple of horny teenagers," he breathed into her ear.

Winding her arms around his shoulders, she dipped her head to run her tongue along his neck, under the jaw and up to the curve of his ear. She _felt_ like a horny teenager, she decided, ignoring the scratching of his stubble against her lips and chin, her body aching for his touch, her memories of their time together crowding around her. It'd only been a weekend, barely an eyeblink in her life, but she couldn't forget it. Couldn't forget him or the way he'd made her feel then.

* * *

><p>Dean stopped in the doorway, eyes closing, his breathing ragged, waiting for the searing rush of heat flooding through him to dissipate slightly before he turned for the hall.<p>

He staggered a little along the short hallway, making it through the bedroom doorway without hurting either of them, and kicking the door shut with his heel, heading for the bed. He turned and sat down, his hands sliding under her robe, slipping it from her shoulders as he kissed her again, his tongue slipping past her lips, softly tracing their shape on the inside.

He heard her breathing hitch as he pulled away suddenly, yanking his shirt over his head, and dropping it onto the floor and he slid his arms around her, drawing her close, smelling and tasting the soft skin of her neck, his hands moving slowly up her thighs, pushing the hem of the short, silky nightgown up.

Slipping one hand between her legs, he eased his fingers under the edge of her panties, stroking her slowly. Lisa shivered, pushing herself down on him, and reached down, lifting her nightgown up and over her head. Watching the lift of her breasts, his eyes half-shut, he leaned forward, mouth closing over the erect nipple as he kept stroking her with his thumb, his fingers dipping in and out of her teasingly.

* * *

><p>Memory, Lisa thought dazedly, wasn't accurate enough. Leaning back, her hands locked behind his neck, she closed her eyes, pushing against his touch, against his mouth, her breathing getting faster and faster.<p>

"Oh … god, Dean … don't stop, baby. Don't stop," she moaned softly.

* * *

><p>For a microsecond, he admitted to himself that what he'd been waiting for wasn't going to materialise. <em>You can't always get what you want<em>, Jagger's voice told him, the song's lines too apt for this split-second, _but if you try sometimes, you get what you need._

What he needed … he blinked as he tipped them both over, his kiss a little more frantic, one arm curved around her, the other fumbling with the fly of his jeans. What he _needed_ was to find a way to keep living when everything he'd been living for was gone. What he _needed_ was a reason beyond just breathing in and out.

He looked down at the woman beneath him, a double-jolt of intense pain and intense desire hitting him together. She was pretty and desirable, she'd taken him in and put up with his rage and his drinking and his surliness and the issue of whether she wanted him was no longer in doubt she spread her legs widely for him, her hands moving down his sides, to guide him in. A lotta guys … he thought, a little incoherently. And he was needing.

The first sensation was wetness, slippery and warm, then a tight, molten heat as he pushed inside her, his body lighting up, sensations spiralling downward and inward to centre squarely within that heat, his harshly indrawn breath in time with hers.

He wanted to take it slow, to give back something of what he'd been taking, to savour what he'd been missing, to make it last. Most of the women in his past, from whom he'd learned that sex came in a hundred different varieties, he'd forgotten. He hadn't forgotten what they'd taught him about women, about giving pleasure and taking it.

Lisa arched up under him, thrusting her hips hard against his, driving him deeper, faster and he slowed her down, watching her face as she relaxed, her pupils widely dilated, mouth open. Slipping his arm under her back, he held her still, feeling her muscles as they began to quiver around him, ducking his head against her shoulder when she contracted hard around him, her body shaking against his and her cry muffled against his neck.

* * *

><p>The house was quiet and dark and Dean felt Lisa sigh, easing his arm from under her as she rolled away.<p>

"_You think there's just one person, for everyone?"_

He'd asked Ellie the question, cringing a little as the words had come out, a little more when she looked at him, one brow rising. It was a chick question, pillow talk with the after-effects of high-voltage sex and he could see she was surprised by it.

_She'd shrugged and answered, "I don't know. I think that if you know someone, and they know you, if you can be yourself with them, no holds barred, then that makes them someone who's … good for you. Maybe right for you."_

He'd looked at her, the shadows of the room hiding one side of her face, the lamp light sheeting her hair to the colour of burnished copper. His face screwed up a little as he rolled away from Lisa. It wasn't a memory he should be looking at … now. Here.

"_I think a lot of people are in too much of a rush," she'd continued, dropping to the pillow beside him. "They want to be in a relationship. They're not necessarily trying to find someone they can be themselves with, maybe they don't even know who they are, when it's just them."_

_Shaking her head a little, she'd looked up at him. "I don't know how it works for everyone else," she'd admitted, her tone wry. "Just for me."_

The look in her eyes had given him the answer he'd been searching for, without the need for any other words. He pushed the memory deep again, the muscle in his jaw tightening at it. He'd believed everything she'd said. And Cas'd said she wasn't dead. But she hadn't come back, not even once the cage had closed.

Dragging in a breath and tucking his arm beneath the pillow, he wondered if he was going to be able to be himself here. If he even knew who that was anymore.

Down the street, a dog barked, and he opened his eyes, looking around the room, lit by the streetlights coming through the thin curtains. It was normal. Ordinary. Safe.

This was his life now, and he owed it to Lisa, to Ben … and to Sam … to make it real. What he needed … what he needed to do was forget about his past, forget about everything that'd happened and start again.


	3. Chapter 3 August 2010

**Chapter 3 August 2010**

* * *

><p>"What do you think of this?"<p>

Lisa dropped the newspaper in front of Dean and he looked at it blankly. Classifieds, he registered automatically, the dense, fine print filling the page.

"What?"

"This one," she said, leaning over his shoulder, her breath warm against his cheek as she pointed out the small advertisement with a fine blue line around it. "We talked about this, remember?"

Talked about _what_, he wondered, leaning over to read it.

_Three bedroom, two and a half bath, large yard. Fireplace, aircon, washer and dryer included. $1470 p.m. Call for details. Apply now._

"A house?"

"A bigger place," Lisa clarified, pulling the newspaper toward her with a slightly irritated air. "This place is too small for the three of us."

She looked down at the advertisement. "It's not that much more expensive."

Glancing around the dining room, Dean vaguely recalled a conversation about moving. They'd been in bed, and he'd been on the verge of sleep, ready to agree to anything. He hadn't thought any more about it, but looking at the woman next to him, it was obvious that she'd taken the conversation to mean green light, go.

"Uh, so, you want to move?"

Lisa's gaze cut to the side. Against the wall, beside the small china dresser, there was a pile of books. He followed her gaze, feeling a flash of guilt. She'd asked him to move the books out of the house, and most of them were in the back seat of the Impala, the pile beside the dresser just the latest ones he'd found.

"This –" she said, waving a hand around. "– was okay for Ben and me, but now we're a – uh, with three of us, it's – um, a bit cluttered."

"Right," he agreed helplessly. "Uh, sure."

"Good, I'll look at it today. Can you get off work early?"

Dean blinked at her. Today? "Uh, yeah, I'll see what I can do."

"I'll call when I've got an appointment," Lisa told him, getting to her feet. "I'll try and make it for later."

He watched her walk out of the room. Was this how it worked, he wondered, a little bemusedly? A five minute discussion – that he didn't really remember – in bed and then they moved?

Shrugging inwardly, he got up, taking the remains of his coffee to the kitchen. It didn't matter to him where they lived, so long as it was protected.

* * *

><p>"What do you think, Dean?" Lisa asked him, her excitement and enthusiasm transparent to him, and he guessed, to the agent who was smiling indulgently, leaning in the doorway.<p>

He looked around the living room, his mind automatically noting the exits, the ease of protection, the layout. The house was two storey, not all that new. There was a basement and plenty of room for a workshop in the double garage and the street was quiet, mainly families or working couples, the agent'd said. It was about as apple-pie as he'd ever find, he thought.

"Sure." He nodded, watching her face light up with happiness. She turned to the real estate agent with a wide grin.

"Yes, we'll take it."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Two days later<strong>_

A house, Dean realised, about halfway into the packing up process, had a lot of stuff. He glanced at the dining room, now filled wall to wall with boxes, and thought of how long it would take to first move them into the truck, then out into the new house, and then unpack them all. And they were doing this voluntarily.

The new neighbourhood was pleasant. The streets were wide and pretty, lined with established old trees, and the agent hadn't lied, he'd realised as he'd cruised the streets inconspicuously after work the previous day. It was mostly families.

Close to Ben's school, a short drive from Lisa's rented studio, and within easy reach of the next two jobs he'd lined up with his current project manager, he couldn't find anything wrong with it. That on its own had made his recon a bit more careful than usual. There was a park at one end of the road, and a small mall at the other but it didn't really lead to anywhere but the residences on it, so the through-traffic was very light.

He'd need to get over there again tonight, he thought, taping the top of the box in front of him, before they moved in. He'd be able to ward the house more effectively if it was empty.

"Lisa?" he called out, jumping a little when she answered from right behind him.

"Yeah?"

"Uh, hey. I need to go out," he said, glancing at his watch. "For a couple of hours. You and Ben okay with finishing up here?"

"Sure, no problem," Lisa said, looking around. "You're nearly done."

"Yeah, I'd thought take a load over tonight, the, um, stuff that's awkward to pack," he told her, gesturing vaguely at a pile by the door. Ben's bike, a couple of dozen pictures in frames, the two big rugs and his library, boxed up now, filled the corner.

"Get the garage set up and put the Impala in it," he added, lifting the box of dishes he'd just packed and carrying to the opposite wall to join the rest. "I can, uh, pick up the truck on the way back, ready to go tomorrow."

"Okay," she said, watching him. "You want to have dinner first?"

"No, I'll grab something while I'm out," he said, turning to look back at her as he grabbed a box of books. "Not sure how long I'll be so don't wait for me."

"Alright," she said. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's good." He turned to the front door. "It'll make things faster tomorrow, is all."

She nodded and sidled past him to open the door, reaching up on her toes to kiss him as he walked past. "I'll see you later then."

"Yep."

Walking out to the garage, he realised he'd already started lying to Lisa. He opened the garage door and walked around the black car, putting the box on the ground and unlocking her.

She didn't need to know the dirty little details of what he was doing, he rationalised to himself, sliding into the driver's seat. Didn't need to know all of it, at any rate. She vacuumed around the shotgun, jar of holy water and bag of salt that were tucked under his side of their bed. She'd hadn't even asked him about them, when he'd put them there and she'd first seen them. In fact, he thought, his fingers resting on the ignition key as he stared at the wheel, she hadn't asked him much at all.

The new house would need as much protection as he could manage, he thought, ignoring the slightly uneasy feeling. He turned the key and was rewarded with the sound of the engine rumbling into life. Easing her out of the garage and onto the driveway, he ran the mental checklist through again.

The trunk still contained all the ingredients he'd need for the cleansing bags. He had Sam's sketches from Bobby's Key of Solomon, the main protective and binding traps. He still had Ellie's more powerful traps, tucked into the back of his father's journal. Salt. Vervain. Ash. Rowan. Oak. Hawthorn. Dill. St John's Wort … there were enough of the folklore herbs in the car to guard both house and garden, enough to prevent a casual incursion, he decided. A deliberate attack would be different. He'd set something up in the basement, something like the panic room. Maybe a cage of some sort, he thought, automatically cutting through the back streets, avoiding the larger thoroughfares where peak hour was still sitting stalled in the gathering darkness.

* * *

><p>The streetlights were partially obscured by the mature trees that lined the verges and sidewalks, throwing dappled light over the driveway when he pulled in. Along the quiet road, curtains and blinds were drawn over lit windows, garden lights twinkled against the foliage in front of most of the homes, and every driveway, it seemed, held a car, tucked up for the night.<p>

Suburbia, he thought, getting out of the car and walking to the garage to unlock the doors. It had an atmosphere of its own, different from small towns or the inner boroughs of the big cities. There was an insulating quality to the suburbs. Small towns were peaceful and frequently felt safe, but their histories were chequered, often long, often containing as many family skeletons as the boneyards in them. People knew each other, probably too well, in small towns, he'd found. That wasn't the case here.

Even with the block parties and the PTA, neighbourhood drives and barbecues and Christmas parties and whatever else went on in the average suburb, the people in these houses didn't really know each other and a thousand secrets could be easily hidden under the façade of ordinariness. A large percentage of the country's serial killers had operated out of such normality.

The double garage was clean and tidy and he looked around, making mental notes about a workshop, storage and accessibility. Going back to the car, he grabbed Ben's bike and wrestled it out of the back seat, wheeling it up and designating a home for it to one side.

When the stuff he'd brought had been unloaded, he drove down the driveway and turned the car around, reversing it back into the garage. The power was already on and he flicked on the garage lights when the door was secured, going to the trunk and lifting the false bottom, his hand reaching for the sawn-off automatically to prop it open.

He'd need to go through the trunk, clean and oil the weapons, prepare them for long term storage, as well as check what was in there and what he'd need to restock, he realised as he began to pull out the bags and boxes that held what he needed.

_Maybe it would be a waste of time_.

The thought stopped him and he stared down at the interior of the trunk, his gaze resting sightlessly on the contents.

Maybe he should be unloading the car into a storage unit, something far away and anonymous, and trying to forget that he had a past. Everything he had, everything he'd managed to keep, from the time they'd left Lawrence till now was nestled haphazardly in the trunk of the car. At the back, insulated against the heat of the exhaust and in a rack he'd built especially for them, old vinyl albums sat, his and a few of his father's. Next to that, the small, wooden box Jenny had handed them, found in the basement of their old house, held the photographs, family papers and few mementos he'd been able to keep a hold of.

They're just things, he told himself uneasily. They were. The things that had meant something to him and still did. Taking them out, leaving them somewhere else … forgetting about them … he didn't think he could do that.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot. It wasn't a decision he had to make right this minute, he told himself. He could think about it for a while. Straightening up, he picked up the bags and boxes and jars, not looking at the rest when he let the lid fall.

* * *

><p>To one side of the garage, a long workbench had been built against the wall, clean white pegboard screwed in above it. He carried the various ingredients for the hex bags and protective circles over to it, a unconscious frown marring his brow. <em>Get your shit together<em>, he told himself tersely, trying to regain his concentration on what he was here to do.

The hex bags were easy, varying quantities of different herbs, dried and crushed, spoonfuls of powdered metal and stone, the small bones of birds and animals, everything with its own power, its own symbolic summoning to the elements. The quantities went into the squares of salt-cured leather he set out on the bench and he drew the corners together, twisting them and reaching for the knotted cords. Spell cord, in black and red and white, each length carefully knotted with a different number and a different pattern, to bind and protect the bags. The memory of sitting at Jenny's dining table at the old house, Missouri sitting opposite, explaining the power of the bags, of the knots and the ingredients, came back vividly and he smiled unconsciously.

Like so many of his memories, it'd been a moment that was filled with the things that he'd grown up with and had never really thought about. A hunter's life. Not always comfortable. Almost never easy. At sixteen, he'd put a silver quarrel through the heart of a werewolf. At eighteen, Caleb had taught him to use a long range rifle, a sniper's rifle and he'd saved Jim Murphy's life with that skill. At twenty, he'd learned to make explosives, make them and handle them. What he'd done, _everything_ he'd done, had been with one purpose in mind. He would protect his family and he would save people from the nightmares that preyed on them in the dark.

He'd thought, when he'd been raised from Hell, that he'd lost what he'd liked about himself. Thought those few things had been stripped away, leaving only the things he was ashamed – or scared – of. Then that'd changed.

She'd been right about him. Those things … small things … vital things … were still there. A little bent, a little battered, but there. He hadn't been able to see them, back then, after she'd disappeared, but he felt them, had found them, in some strange way, here. Night after night, when he couldn't sleep, when he drank steadily till dawn, those memories had started to come back. Some were soothing, reminding him of good times. Some were not.

Finishing the last of the hex bags, he set the dozen to one side.

The liquid he needed for the sigils and wards and guards was a little more tricky. Glancing along the bench, now covered in beaten metal bowls, small sacks of crushed greenery, powdered stone, jars of blood and the specifically knotted ties and brushes, it looked like any witch's workroom he'd ever seen, sending a shiver down the back of his neck. They used the same spells as the things they hunted. Some of them, he amended hurriedly to himself. Blood and bone. Herbs and crystals. Silk and iron and silver and gold.

_Magic isn't inherently good or bad_. He couldn't help the slight twitch of reaction from that memory, that voice. It brought a stab with it, every single time. Dragging in a deep breath, he turned back to the trunk, opening the long, black gear bag that held his father's journal.

The diagrams were clear, circles and triangles, shapes that had no beginning and no end. Pentacles and the delicate cartography of languages long dead. He ignored the notes alongside the drawings, keeping his eyes away from the backward-slanting neat handwriting. One for each entrance in the house, he reminded himself. One for every door, window, vent, inside of the chimney in the living room, around the external grills in the basement and roof.

* * *

><p>It took just over two hours to ward the house, and he stood in the laundry, washing the blood and crumbling herbs and ash from his hands when he'd finished, satisfied that it was as protected as he could make it. Even Bobby's place wasn't this thoroughly protected, he thought, turning off the taps and drying his hands.<p>

They'd never had a home permanent enough to worry about most of the sigils and guards he'd put here, but they'd known about them. Some were written into his father's journal. Some had come from Missouri, more pertinent to the dangers of spirit and psychic. Cas had shown them the powerful designs of the angels, letters of a language known only to a few on earth; for deflection, for illusions, for impenetrable walls of intention, both mental and physical. There was, Sam had muttered at the time, a huge amount of knowledge out there, that they didn't know anything about, had never come across. Humanity had been fighting off the supernatural, unnatural and preternatural for more than forty thousand years, after all. He'd seen frustration in his brother when he'd said it, that sneaking sense that if they had even a fraction of that knowledge, their lives would be different.

He couldn't disagree. Walking back to the garage and picking up a couple of the boxes of books and notes he'd spent the last three months collecting, he wondered if he should've been looking for places that held that knowledge, instead of sitting on his ass here, waiting and hoping for it to come to him. He carried the boxes down to the basement, setting them into a dry corner and turned back for the rest. Bill Harvelle's library had been incinerated when the roadhouse had burned to the ground. Bobby was still collecting and he thought of Rufus' small, untidy house, wall-to-wall books stacked on every surface.

People had written those books. People had discovered which things in the natural world provided protection against the things that hunted in darkness, had devised the spells and traps; had figured out the weaknesses, what to use to kill them.

Stacking the last of the boxes into the corner, Dean leaned on it, his fingers tightening on the sides. What the fuck was he doing here, trying to be John Q Normal?

_You made a promise_, the voice in his head reminded him. _To quit. To have a home and a family. To be happy. To not look for a way to shake the Cage_.

He straightened his back and let his head tip back, eyes closing. When he'd made that promise, he'd had no idea of what it'd mean. Or what it would do to him, trying to fit into someplace that had no room for his past. Or what he'd spent his life trying to do.

He let out a long exhale and opened his eyes, looking around the clean, empty space. He was just going to have to make it fit, he realised. Make it work. He'd _wanted_ an ordinary life, he reminded himself sharply. _Wanted_ a home and a family.

* * *

><p>The unpacking took two days.<p>

Standing in the open doorway of the garage, Dean folded the cardboard boxes flat, stacking them in a pile and tying them together into like-sized bundles as he went. He called Ben when he'd finished and they carried the boxes down to the basement, stacking them on the simple wooden shelving that lined the back wall.

"Gotta do a service on the truck tomorrow," he said as they walked back up the stairs. "You gonna help?"

"Absolutely," Ben affirmed enthusiastically, turning to grin up at him.

"Good," Dean said, ducking his head to hide a smile.

* * *

><p>The doorbell rang as they came back into the kitchen and he veered toward it.<p>

A couple stood on the porch, the man a little under his own height, lanky and stoop-shouldered, the woman beside him a tall, pretty blonde carrying a large plastic container. Both smiled widely as he opened the door.

"Hi," the man said, leaning forward past the woman and offering his hand. "I'm Sid … Mason, this is Nancy, my wife. We're your neighbours!"

Taking the Sid's hand, Dean shook automatically, his expression blank. "Uh, hey."

"We like to welcome people to the neighbourhood," Nancy said, lifting the large Tupperware container she held in her hands up a little. "Makes for a friendlier place, don't you think?"

"Uh …"

"Hi," Lisa said, coming up behind Dean and smiling at the couple. "Come in, please," she told them, pushing the door wider and stepping to one side with a quick glance around. "We're still a bit disorganised, but the kitchen's done. I'm Lisa, this is Dean."

"Thanks," Nancy said, stepping past Dean and looking around with interest. "You must work quickly. Took me nearly two weeks to get our place in shape when we moved here."

Sid …and Nancy? Dean couldn't get that out of his head. "You guys get a lot of jokes," he said, waving an arm in invitation into the house.

Sid stepped inside, and turned to look at him, brows rising high. "About what?"

"Uh - about … never mind," Dean said, closing the door. "So, uh, welcome wagon?"

His neighbour grinned, a little self-consciously. "Nance's idea. She's too friendly for her own good, I tell her."

Sounds about right, Dean thought, following him down the hall. "Uh, so … you lived here long?" he asked, grabbing at the first thing that popped into his head. What did people talk about, he wondered? What the hell was _he_ going to talk about?

"Seven years, come May," Sid replied over his shoulder. "We knew the family who owned this place before – Marty and Goldie – they had four kids and another on the way so they decided to find someplace bigger. D'you meet 'em?"

"No. Uh, no, we didn't," Dean said. "We're renting."

"Oh, upwardly mobile, eh?" Sid stopped dead and turned to face him. "My investment broker keeps telling me to get out of real estate, but I can't," he continued, his face earnest. "I mean, it's something, isn't it? Your own home? A man's castle? And Nance is determined to raise our kids in a good place."

"You, uh, got kids?"

"Not yet," Sid told him with a wink, turning away to look around the living room. "We're trying."

Definitely not a conversation he wanted to get into, Dean decided, taking a step toward the kitchen. "Beer?"

"Always."

* * *

><p>Dean stopped in the doorway to the master bedroom, brows drawing together a little as he looked at the bed. Lisa was lying on her side, reading by the light of the lamp, the covers turned down on his side.<p>

The walls of the room were a plain white, something that'd appealed to him when they'd looked it over. Now, as he looked from the bed to the curtains, and slowly around the room, it'd been transformed into a vision of florals and a thousand different shades of pink.

"Whoa."

Lisa looked up. "What?"

Dean gestured helplessly around the room. "I can't – this – no, c'mon …"

"What?" she asked again, following his gaze around the room. "Oh …"

"Yeah."

"But –"

"Yeah, sorry, no buts," Dean cut her off, shaking his head. "I can't sleep in here, Lise."

"It's pretty –"

"Yeah. No."

"Alright," she said, with a deep sigh. "We'll look for more manly bed linen tomorrow, okay? You can sleep in a girly room for one night, can't you?"

He was tired enough to, he thought, stepping into the room uneasily. He'd certainly slept – well, not _slept_, exactly – in more girly rooms than this before. For a night. For a part of the night, anyway.

"The hell you get this stuff?" he asked her as he shucked his clothes on his side of the bed, letting them drop to the floor.

"This is …" she hesitated for a moment, then turned to look at him. "Just at sales, here and there."

"Huh."

* * *

><p>The next three weeks passed fast. The unpacking had been completely finished, everything had found a place and he was getting used to it, waking up in the same room every morning, coming down the stairs into a home. They'd met a few more of the neighbours at Sid's end of summer block party and Lisa had started to work on the garden. They were starting to settle in.<p>

The house was in reasonable shape, Dean thought as he tightened the last screw on the guttering at the back of the garage. The large yard took up the most time, needing a mow every weekend and he was still digging, the calluses on his hands getting harder with each new garden bed Lisa had asked for.

Swinging down from the ladder and picking it up, he realised that he was breathing a little more easily now. No monsters to track, no angels or demons, no apocalyptic countdown driving him from sunup to sundown. The nightmares were getting worse, he acknowledged sourly, carrying the ladder back to the garage and setting it in its place, his gaze sweeping over the clean and tidy workbenches and his tools, and he couldn't shut them down, but the days were … peaceful. Filled with simple problems that had easy solutions.

Except for the one that wouldn't let him be.

In the dimness of the garage's interior, he leaned back against the bench, his chest tightening suddenly. Grief hit him at any time, and he struggled to keep it inside, away from the people he cared about, away from this life.

* * *

><p>"Hey, amigo!"<p>

Dean looked up, throttling the mower back to a dull roar as he saw Sid's face over the fence.

"How about a beer?"

"Gimme an hour, Sid. I should get this done before it gets over knee height." Dean gave him a lop-sided smile. "No rest for the wicked, you know."

Sid nodded. "Okay, I'll hold you to that."

Dean's mouth twisted slightly as the man turned away. He really had to be black and white with his neighbour, who couldn't recognise a hint at ten paces. Oh well, a beer wouldn't be entirely unwelcome by the time he finished. He increased the revs and started to push the mower again, the vibrations through his hands and the steady drone numbing him. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could see the results of his effort, smooth, emerald-green grass, short and tidy in long swathes behind him.

_That lawn looks like it could use some mowing_. The memory, a fake one, but as real to him as any of his others, came back to him. _You want to mow the lawn?_ His mother's voice had been disbelieving, he recalled, her expression more so. _You kidding me? I'd love to mow the lawn._

It'd been a dream, a wish, and a poison-induced one at that, but he'd wanted to stay there, with his family, a chance at a life he'd hardly been able to imagine. Mowing the lawn around the Lawrence house and sinking a beer on the front steps afterwards, Sam and Jess and a figment of his imagination with long dark hair and dark brown eyes, who'd loved him unconditionally, it'd seemed, without knowing anything about him.

_For the record, he doesn't know what he's missing_, she'd said. He wasn't sure she'd known either. He cut along the edge of the flower bed, turning the mower around and heading back across the yard. He'd had a job there. And he'd been something of a loser there, he remembered uncomfortably. Stealing his brother's ATM card and prom dates; drinking, apparently, enough that it'd been his mom's first thought when he'd shown up at home.

The sharp smell of the freshly cut grass filled his senses, the drone of the engine returning incrementally to him. There was nothing special about him, he thought. An ordinary guy, mowing an ordinary lawn in an ordinary neighbourhood. Was this his second chance at that life? A life where nothing more than looking after his – Lisa and Ben – would be expected of him?

It wasn't possible to go back. He'd wanted nothing more than that his whole life. To go back to better times. Easier times. To have his family around him. Then just to go back to hunting with Sam and his father, with Jim Murphy and Caleb and Bobby. As each door had closed, he'd looked around for something else. He wanted his brother back. And something else, something he tried not to let himself think about.

None of it was real, he thought, turning the mower again automatically, the cut section growing larger. And the more he looked back, the less he could see what was around him, what was here and now and … for the most part … good.

He pushed the mower around the curve of the beds, turning back up the yard for the last pass. The past – his past – was something that an ordinary guy would've run screaming from, he thought bitterly. The good times had been few and far between, most of it had been misery and pain and not knowing what the fuck he was doing. Looking around the peaceful yard, with its bright flower beds and mature trees, the stretch of short, inviting-looking grass, he couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with him, that the sight left him feeling empty and discontented, somewhere deep inside.

He finished the last band near the house and turned the mower off, unhooking the catcher and emptying it into the compost pile. He turned as Lisa appeared at the back door.

"Did I hear you agree to go next door for a beer?" she asked him, smiling. "Don't tell me you're finally getting into this suburban routine."

Dean smiled back, liking the way she looked as she leaned on the doorframe, hipshot in close-fitting dark jeans, her hair loose over her shoulders, her eyes bright and warm.

"Must be," he said, returning the catcher to the mower. "Had to happen, right?"

* * *

><p>Dean looked around the bedroom, checking the sigils, their wax outlines only faintly visible against the glass window panes. Another hidden under the carpet in front of the door. His gaze passed over the thick self-patterned cream curtains and geometric bed covers in navy and purple and white with a slight feeling of relief. After so many motel rooms, he'd thought he was pretty much immune to décor of any kind, but it turned out he wasn't. Too many flowers in one place had a deleterious affect on him.<p>

He'd checked the rest of the house, the nightly prowl through the house a routine now, impossible to forget or forego. The street had been quiet, but he'd had an uncomfortable sense of being watched, distant, but there. He hadn't been able to see anything out of place along the road, watching from the darkened house for almost half an hour. The feeling had gone just as he'd thought about going outside and eyeballing the neighbourhood.

Stripping off, he left his clothes on the floor by the bed and eased himself onto the mattress, not certain if Lisa was sleeping yet or not. He turned off the lamp, and shifted down the bed, feeling himself relax finally as he closed his eyes.

Lisa stretched out beside him, wriggling her toes, a tangible contentment radiating from her with a long, quiet exhale. She rolled onto her side, and slid her hand over his chest, curling up against him. Moving his arm back, giving her room to lay her head against his shoulder, he wrapped it around her when she was settled.

"This is heaven," she murmured softly against his skin.

He glanced down at her. He was glad she was happy. He didn't begrudge her that feeling in the slightest. But he found his throat was tight, and he couldn't answer her.

* * *

><p><em>It wasn't hot. His skin was goose-fleshing as he walked through the dark tunnel. But ahead, he could see the flames, glittering on the smooth, glassy walls.<em>

"_SAMMY!"_

_The voice boomed through the tunnels, distorted and echoing from the hard surfaces and Dean flinched back, his foot sliding out on the slick ice._

"_You didn't really think that this would redeem you, did you, Sam? Make up for all those things you did?"_

_Staying on his hands and knees, Dean crawled closer to the opening ahead, eyes narrowing as the brightness increased and he could see the reflections of the fires, burning and twisting around three indistinct shapes._

"_NOTHING will make up for you choices, Sammy," the voice said, rich with amusement. "You will never be clean. Never be forgiven!"_

Wrong_, Dean thought, slowing as he reached the corner. His brother had made a few bad choices, but never deliberately, never knowingly. He flattened out on the ice floor, edging forward._

_Sam was stretched out, arms and legs akimbo, the hooks embedded between his joints a solid red. Dean let out a soft moan as he looked at his brother. Not one inch of skin was intact. Not one inch was whole._

_Beside him, Lucifer strode back and forth across the steaming ice, his construct beautiful and terrifying, misshapen and glowing with rage. On the other side of Sam, Dean saw another figure, tall and broad-shouldered, shredded wings rising from the shoulder blades. It didn't look like Adam, not really._

"_Welded together we are, Sam," Lucifer shouted. "You and me together. Forever."_

"_Pick up your sword, brother," Michael said, moving around Sam's body and lifting his own. "Pick it up and face me!"_

"_We have no quarrel, Michael!"_

"_Pick up your sword or watch me carve up your vessel!"_

_He swung around, and the tip of the shining sword slid into Sam's chest, scoring over ribs and plunging deeply into his abdomen._

_Dean sprang to his feet, shaking from head to foot, his throat raw as the scream tore out of him._

Dean jerked upright, fists clenched and heart pounding in his ears, his eyes slowly registering the dark and silent room, the smell of burning metal and burning flesh gone.

Beside him, Lisa stirred a little, reaching out to touch him. He slid away, kicking his feet free of the covers and getting out of the bed, the stench of his sweat and its chill driving him out of the room. There were times when he needed her touch, the comfort of being close to someone. And there were times when it was too much, when he felt skinless and raw and needed to be away from her – from everyone.

In the bathroom, he shut the door and flicked on the light, staring disbelievingly at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He didn't know how he could look the same. There should have been something, some visible wound or scar on him, showing the pain he was feeling.

Turning on the tap, he filled his hands with cold water, splashing it over his face, over his hair and down the back of his neck, welcoming the frigid bite of it.

_Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland._

They'd both known it at the time. Lucifer thwarted. Lucifer defeated. There would no limits. Under the constant enraging taunts of Michael, as trapped and defeated as the devil, his brother was a chew toy.

_Sammy._

A deep shudder rippled through him and he turned off the tap, swinging around and slapping a hand against the wall switch as he opened the door. There was a fifth in the cupboard and he thought he'd need it all tonight.


	4. Chapter 4 September 2010

**Chapter 4 September 2010**

* * *

><p>"Winchester!"<p>

Dean looked around at the bellow, lifting the saw blade from the plank, thumbing the off switch as Harker Davies walked around the end of the workbench. The scream of the circular blade trailed off to a whine and then stopped.

"Got another two weeks on this place," the burly foreman said, his eyes flicking left and right, a nervous habit Dean'd determined, after watching him for a few weeks to make sure it wasn't an unnatural sensitivity to light or movement. "Then a six month contract for a hotel downtown – you in?"

He'd almost wished Davies was a monster, just for the chance to legitimately take the cheap-assed, two-faced, spiteful conman out of the gene pool. Fortunately for Davies, he was just another example of the human race, out and about on their daily business, Dean thought, pushing goggles back from his face. An asshat, but one that was paying the bills. "Sure."

"Good, see Marie for the sub-con before you go home."

He nodded, looking down at the cut in the plank in front of him. Davies was skimming wherever he could and he'd been a little surprised to realise that most of the men working for him knew it. He didn't play around with wages, Ted had told him, over a fast beer after work a week ago. Didn't screw the IRS or his work team. Just the owners.

Driving a thumbnail into the soft wood lying on the workbench, Dean's brows drew together. Just the owners – and the poor bastards their substandard construction would fall onto one day.

_Dude, they're just people._

Sam's voice came back to him, his little brother had sounded almost offended. People, he'd told him back then, had no rules or patterns to keep them vulnerable. They were just crazy. He'd take monsters any day of the week.

He felt someone come up behind him.

"Don't sweat it," Mitch advised him, looking over his shoulder at the plank. "Harker's on the way out, we just have to hang in there for a few more weeks and we'll have a new foreman."

Glancing at the man's back as he kept walking, Dean wondered if the new foreman would be any better than Davies. This was the second outfit he'd worked with in the last three months. The previous one, building low-cost tract housing over dirt-cheap repossessed farmland, had been worse.

* * *

><p>Looking around the hangar-sized furniture warehouse, Dean wondered again if this was really necessary.<p>

"I like these," Lisa said, ten yards away and sitting comfortably in a beige-coloured armchair. "Two chairs, sofa and the table, all together. What do you think?"

He schooled his expression into something he hoped approximated some kind of interest and walked over, dropping onto the sofa. It was alright, he thought.

"It'll go with the walls, and we can get cushions and throws to add some colour," Lisa told him, waving a hand toward the far end of the warehouse as she stood up to try the other armchair. "Or, better yet, I can get some slipcovers made up, change the look for every season."

He watched her in bemusement. The decision to buy new furniture had come on as suddenly and with as little warning as the decision to move. He wasn't sure he'd gotten the exact reason the old armchairs and sofa were no longer satisfactory, something about not matching, he thought vaguely, but once he'd indicated that he wasn't opposed to the idea, Lisa had been on it. And here they were. In a building that had arrows painted on the floor and no way of short-cutting through the damned place but following the arrows to the other side. The tray of the pickup would just accommodate the set he was sitting in, but he could see they were gonna have to get through a whole bunch of other room possibilities before they got to the checkouts at the end.

"We really need a bigger dining table," Lisa said, more or less on cue, he thought. "Nancy invited us for dinner next weekend and I'd like to return the invite sometime."

Getting to his feet, his stomach dipping and rolling a little with the thought of more socialising with the neighbours, he followed Lisa as she made a u-turn on the arrow-path and headed for the dining section, her gaze scanning the store automatically for Ben. They both saw him a moment later, leaning awkwardly against a display wardrobe and talking to a couple of other kids.

"Ben!" Lisa called out, lifting her arm and waving a hand in the general direction of the dining room furniture.

Ben nodded and Dean watched him look back as he wandered reluctantly away from the other kids, tripping slightly over a dragged toe of his sneaker.

"What's up?" he asked the boy when Ben had caught up. "You know those kids?"

"Yeah," Ben said, glancing back toward the kids again. "Just – uh – they're going, well, they're going to the park concert tonight, and they wanted to know if I was going."

Dean let out a small exhale. The concert was a regular summer thing, apparently, held in the biggest park and usually with an enthusiastic, mostly-under-twenty turnout. He recalled Lisa's stance on the event when Ben had raised it.

"_No," she'd said, her face hardening along with her voice. "He's too young."_

"_I don't mind –"_

"_No," she'd cut him off. "I went to it a few years ago, and it was badly handled, several people were injured in the crush and just – no. He can go when he's fifteen, if he wants to then."_

She didn't say no to Ben often, but when she did, that was the end of it. There was no possibility of renegotiation.

"I heard it wasn't so great," Dean offered, looking down at Ben's morose expression as they followed the winding path and oversized arrows through the displays. "Kind of lame."

Ben looked up at him, his mouth twisting up disbelievingly. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Work guys."

"Yeah, well, they're wrong," Ben told him, his head ducking to stare at the floor again. "All the kids are going."

_But all the kids are going to be in the play._

Dean suddenly heard his little brother's voice, piping out from his memories. He heard his father's sharp response to the plea as well. It hadn't killed Sammy to miss out on the play, or on the countless events of his school years, he knew. It might've had something to do with the way he'd come to see his family, all those resounding denials.

"Ben, you know your mom's just looking out for you," he said, knowing it wasn't enough.

"Yeah, I know," Ben admitted unwillingly. "It's just – I'm not a little kid anymore, you know?"

"Sure," he agreed immediately, repressing his smile. At ten, he'd been doing salt'n'burns with his father, or with Jim, just as full of adult importance as the boy walking beside him.

"And, you know, it's not like she has to worry about me all the time anymore," Ben continued. "She's got you now."

"Uh, I'm pretty sure –" Dean frowned. "– pretty _damned_ sure – it doesn't work like that, Ben."

"No, that's not – I just mean, for most of the time, it was just us, her and me," Ben hurriedly added, his expression a little nervous as he slid a sideways glance at Dean. "And we did most stuff together, you know? Now, she gets to do the things she likes to do without having to think about if I want to do it too, you know what I mean?"

He wasn't sure he did. "Not really."

Glancing around the store, Ben shrugged. "I don't know, she's happier now. And, um, not so stressed. Like everything, it's not all just on her anymore?"

"Right." He looked away, knowing he should be talking to Lisa about this, not her son but unable to prevent himself from asking anyway. "Your mom, uh, she didn't have much help?"

Ben's voice was matter of fact as he answered, "Sometimes, but they didn't last too long. Mom said most guys aren't up for a ready-made family."

There wasn't the slightest hint of disappointment in Ben's voice, but Dean grimaced inwardly at the mental image anyway, his imagination, always too vivid, giving him a sudden view into their lives. He had no moral ground in this arena, having walked away from too many girls who'd wanted more from him, knowing his pleasure had come at the cost of their pain, but he'd never lied to them, never raised expectations deliberately, or told them he was anything but a passer-through.

"Guess they didn't know what they were missing," Dean said, looking back at the boy.

Ben grinned at him. "That's what Mom said."

"Yeah, well, she was right," he said firmly, pushing aside a faint thread of discomfort. He was here, with them, looking out for them, but … he switched his thoughts back to Ben's disappointment of the missed concert.

"Maybe we could figure out something else to do, you know, instead of the concert. Something cool."

The look the boy gave him was uncertain, hopeful and a little wary at the same time. "Really?"

"Why not?" Dean said, slowing down to look around for Lisa. "Why don't you see what you can come up with, and I'll square it with your mom?"

"Okay," Ben said. "Thanks."

Shaking his head, Dean stopped and looked around. "And, uh, you see her around anywhere?"

"There," Ben said, pointing instantly to a dining setting where his mother was sitting and examining the tag attached to the table. "You think we'll need a moving truck to get all this stuff home?"

That's what he was afraid of. That and assembling the damned stuff.

* * *

><p>"You're making gumbo?"<p>

Dean turned around, ducking his head and shrugging as he saw Lisa standing by the counter. "Yeah, just felt like it," he said, hoping it wouldn't turn into a big deal.

"No," Lisa said, smiling as she walked up to him and peered into the pot. "I mean – where'd you learn to make gumbo?"

"In, uh, New Orleans," he told her, a flashing image of Collette and her family filling his mind's eye and vanishing. The job had taken two weeks. He'd stayed on with them another six, dealing with minor hauntings and learning about hoodoo, unwilling to leave. "Got a – I was there for a couple of months, and uh, got to know a few people."

"You are full of surprises, Dean Winchester," Lisa said, turning to kiss him lightly. "What time's dinner?"

"About an hour," he told her, giving the pot another stir and turning the heat down a little further.

"Any other skills I should know about?" she asked him, leaning against the counter and watching as he moved another covered pot off the stove.

"Hundreds," he told her, flashing an immodest grin. "You should try my scrambled eggs."

"What's wrong with my scrambled eggs?"

"Uh, nothing, they're – uh –" he stammered, wondering how the hell he'd stumbled into that tiger trap without seeing it.

"Just not as good as yours?" she asked him, one brow rising. "Better be right about that, you can make breakfast tomorrow."

"Sure," he said, letting out his breath in a soft exhale of relief.

Relationships, ones that lasted longer than a week, had more minefields than he'd ever considered possible, he thought, turning back to the stove as she left the room. Aside from the dangerous areas he'd brought with him, it took a lot of effort to make sure that whatever he said wasn't somehow inadvertently insulting, or careless, or something else he'd never considered. He couldn't remember now if these problems had come up in the couple of weeks he'd spent with Cassie. He didn't think so. Of course, neither of them had paid much attention to the domestic situation back then either.

He turned the heat down a little more as his thoughts drifted back to what was waiting for him in the corner of the basement he'd set up. Another load of books. He'd lost his initial surges of hope with each delivery from the New York rare books store, the information contained in them wasting his time with fantasy or unproven myth. The memory of the place had come back when he'd seen the address in his father's journal, but the proprietor had been less than optimistic about his chances of finding something that would really help. The last two deliveries, each containing a half a dozen mouldy and well-thumbed old books, had been practically useless, a lot of speculation and no real facts.

* * *

><p>Lisa walked out of the house and down the narrow side path, taking the end of the hose from the reel and pulling it out behind her. In the soft purple twilight, the garden looked beautiful, she thought, plugging the end of the hose into the sprinkler system and turning it on. The beds Dean had dug for her were filled with flowers, some still blooming and others just finishing, a riot of colour against the established trees and shrubs that had yet to turn their colours. The lawn was smooth and green, inviting picnics with rugs and wine and – and – other delights, she thought, ducking her head at the images that filled her mind's eye. It was still warm, most days.<p>

It was very hard to believe in the changes Dean had brought to her life over the last two and a half months.

_What are you even still doing here? We had one weekend together a million years ago. You don't know me! And you have no business with my son!_

The memory popped back, fully as vivid as the day she'd said – well, yelled it – to him. She still didn't know exactly what'd prompted the defensive response. Fear, she guessed, watching the sprinklers turn, bejewelling the garden with thousands of rainbow-filled diamond drops. Fear of what'd been happening to Katie. Fear of the man she'd wanted to see again but didn't know at all. Fear of herself. Of teaching Ben the wrong things. Of being considered a bad mom … a thousand and one fears, most of which had been pretty normal and total horseshit.

She shook her head. If he'd left, after that, Ben wouldn't be here today. She hadn't believed it, not back then.

_You know how I never mentioned my job? This is my job_, he'd said to her, having explained what'd happened in more detail than she'd really wanted or needed. Monsters. She'd seen it, masquerading as her son, the true face reflected in the glass of her coffee table.

_I so didn't want to know that_, she'd replied, joking … but really not.

She still didn't want to know, she realised, turning away from the garden and walking back into the house.

The rich and appetising smells from the kitchen were filling the lower level and Lisa walked to the stairs, going up and into their bedroom. Really _their_ bedroom now, she thought absently, a faint thread of heat thrilling through her. Closing the door behind her, she walked to the small dressing table near the window.

She hadn't asked him much about the past, not sure where to start, not sure that she wanted to know, not wanting to bring the return of his grief. The little he'd told her had been … sketched in, few details, an occasional good memory that started out with him grinning and then was sometimes truncated, halfway through, maybe by the full memory returning, something hard or painful or … terrifying.

_I don't need to know all the details of his past_, she told herself, looking into the bevelled mirror above the vanity. _No one needs to know everything_; there were things she wouldn't tell him about her life. She was living with him. She knew he was a good man. A man she could trust.

_And when he sits there, staring at nothing, his eyes dark and full of pain … you don't need to know about that?_ The voice in her mind asked sharply. _Or you don't want to know about his scars and wounds? All those things that drive him out of your bed in the middle of the night and send him downstairs to the bottle and waiting the night out in the dark, on his own?_

_No_, she argued with herself – or her mother, she could never decide which. He just lost the last of his family, he deserves privacy while he deals with that.

It was a good rationalisation. Dean had told her about losing his mother. A house fire when he'd been four. Had told her a little about his childhood, travelling with his father, raising his baby brother. In between the words were vast badlands of things left unsaid and things she couldn't bring herself to ask him. Her childhood had been ordinary. Fighting with her sister. Boyfriends. Parents who were there all the time. School. Homework. Rebellion. _Normal_. She didn't like to try to imagine what his had consisted of … no home, no friends, the tacit feeling that it'd been dangerous, both outside dangers and interior ones, dangers that had left marks on both Dean and on his brother, mostly invisible but still there.

"He's responsible and caring," she said out loud to the mirror. "That's all that matters."

She got up abruptly, knocking over a bottle of perfume and snatching at it as it teetered on the edge of the table. Setting it down with a careful deliberation, she backed away from the vanity and turned to the built-in closets, pulling open the doors of hers. She flicked through the dresses hanging there and pulled out the pale pink sundress, tossing it onto the bed. It was a suitable outfit for a gumbo evening, she decided.

* * *

><p>Dean slammed the cover of the book shut, the thud echoing a little from the basement walls.<p>

_Another waste of time_. He pushed the last book across the desk's surface toward the pile of equally useless volumes and got up, running a hand over his forehead as he stared at the shelving that lined the corner. From ceiling to floor, every inch was filled, books filling the gaps between the spines and shelf-tops and stacked in leaning piles on the floor. He'd read hundreds of fucking books and not one of them had even come close to a way to get Sam out.

_There had to be a way._

There probably was, he considered tiredly, turning from the corner and heading for the stairs. Just one he couldn't find … here. There were people, living on the fringes on his world, people who could find it. He didn't know how to find them. It would take leaving here to find them, he amended silently to himself. Leaving and breaking his promise.

He turned off the basement lights and pulled the door closed behind him. The clock over the kitchen windows informed him that it was three a.m. Glancing at the stairs leading to the bedrooms, he turned away, heading for the living room. He wouldn't get more than an hour of sleep, more than likely punctuated by another nightmare, and he'd do better on none at all.

The curtains and blinds were drawn but the streetlights still managed to find a way in, casting shadows over the furniture and rooms. Walking to the narrow sideboard on the other side of the room, Dean looked around absently. It'd taken him a couple of days to get all the pieces that had come flat-packed put together, Lisa hovering around impatiently, waiting for him to finish. It looked … he stopped and studied the room for the first time since the stuff had arrived … it looked like the houses he and his father, or he and Sam had visited, to talk to witnesses, bereaved family members, persons of interest. Clean. Pale shades. Tidy. Responsible. Settled.

A few framed prints decorated the wall above the sofa. Modern still lifes and landscapes mostly. On the other wall, a dozen or so framed photographs hung in a squared-up display. Portraits of Lisa. Ben. Her family. The three of them, smiling into the camera. Records of happiness. He couldn't remember being there for half of them.

The beige sofa and armchairs were scattered with plump cushions in muted colours, picked up by the rug on the floor under them. On the side-tables, vases and small boxes of no discernible function and more framed photographs stood, dusted religiously. A couple of magazines were on the low table between the chairs, bright and claiming impossible dreams in bold text on their covers.

He turned around slowly, his gaze moving around the room. There wasn't a single thing in the room that was his.

An image slid into his mind, the wooden box in the trunk of the Impala, and he flinched from it involuntarily. What the box contained was all he had in the world of his past, things that were intensely private. He couldn't imagine them sitting here, on view for all the world to see and comment about and pass judgement on.

Sucking in a deep breath, he shook himself and turned back to the bottles gathered on the faux walnut tray in front of him. It was how it was, wasn't it? Living with someone? Living with a woman? She made the cave comfortable; he brought home the bacon and took out the garbage? He could admit to not having a real good idea of how it was supposed to be, but most of the people he'd met, here and before (_in his _other_ life_), seemed to follow those guidelines.

Pouring a couple of inches into a glass, he tried to force his thoughts around to more familiar ground. It wasn't like he knew what he was doing, he told himself derisively. At thirty-one, this was his only experience of sharing a place. Being with someone longer than a couple of weeks. Living with someone other than his family. It would just take some time to get used to it.

He carried the glass to the armchair, setting it down on the small table and flipping off the lamp as he sat down.

The memory appeared behind his closed lids without volition, the quiet music and the soft drone of the other diners coming back to him, the taste of the melt-in-the-mouth steak filling his mouth. He remembered the conversation. Remembered the almost-tangible feeling of being relaxed. Himself. Nothing to hide. Not pretending to be something he wasn't. The candle-light had burnished her hair to polished copper and he'd liked making her laugh.

* * *

><p>In front of the double garage, the owners had given Dean the most perfect gift he could imagine. A perfectly level, flat stretch of concrete that made doing any regular maintenance work on the vehicles a breeze. The pickup was parked there, engine warm from a half-hour run, in gear and with the parking brake pulled on tight. He turned to look at the boy standing expectantly next to the open engine bay. Despite a couple of promises to teach Ben about the cars, he'd done the last couple of services on his own, in too much of a hurry to give the boy a chance to learn what to do without unneeded pressure. This time, they had all the time in the world.<p>

"Gonna need a bit more height," he said, looking critically at Ben's position next to the bay. "Your mom's got that, uh, short stool thing, in the kitchen. You wanna get it?"

Ben nodded enthusiastically and ran for the house and Dean turned back to look over the pickup's engine. The truck had been secondhand but with low mileage and it wasn't new enough to have any kind of computer assistance. When Ben reappeared clutching the short stool, he pointed in front of the engine bay and thought about where to start with engine maintenance 101.

"You know this is a combustion engine, right?" he said to Ben, leaning against the bay and pointing to the manifold. "It runs by igniting petrol and forcing the mechanical parts inside to move."

Nodding, Ben's expression was intent, taking in the parts of the engine and their functions as Dean described them.

"So, to stop power loss from the friction of the moving parts, the engine is filled with a special oil," Dean continued, pulling out the dipstick. The end showed the case was full but the oil was black. "It keeps the parts from wearing, keeps the temperatures equal and picks up the grunge of soot and particle wearing that can, uh, destroy your cylinders."

"So that's what we're changing?" Ben asked, his eyes wide and round as he looked up at Dean.

"Yeah," Dean said, unscrewing the oil cap. "We change the oil every couple of thousand miles on a car like this, and it'll keep running for a long time." He leaned over the bay and gestured at a cylinder, sitting on one side of the engine. "You see that round thing?"

Ben leaned over the front. "Yep."

"That's the oil filter, that gets changed at the same," Dean said. "It traps all the crap the oil's picked up from the inside of the engine, keeps it cleaner."

Stepping back, he looked around for the bowl he'd set down. "Oil changes we do pretty regularly," he said, spotting it and nudging it under the car with a boot. "But we also have do other regular maintenance work so the car stays in good shape."

He'd have to do the gearbox oil and air filters on the Impala, he thought, and service the carby. Ben would be able to help with that stuff.

He'd learned about engines from his father and from Bobby. The Impala was as familiar to him as his own body, every nut and bolt, every belt and panel and spring and screw. At Bobby's, he'd learned about other cars, other vehicles, from the sixties and seventies sports cars Bobby couldn't help but pick up whenever he saw them, to the insides of diesel trucks and working on construction vehicles. He could drive anything with wheels, and a few things without, and he knew all their dark, oily secrets. He'd spent more time flat on his back under a chassis in his early teens than he had doing anything else.

"First thing," he said to Ben, dragging his thoughts back. "Grab the creeper and get under the car."

* * *

><p>Lisa looked up as they came back into the house two hours later. Ben was talking non-stop and Dean walked slowly beside him, nodding seriously. Both were covered in black smears of engine oil, the rags they were wiping their hands on seeming to smudge the stuff over more of their skin instead of removing it.<p>

"Not the bathroom!" she ordered as they hesitated in front of the stairs. "Use the laundry sink."

She couldn't remember seeing her son so uncomplicatedly happy before – or getting on with someone so well before, for that matter, she thought. His voice piped continuously, high and fast, as they walked through the kitchen and out to the back room, questioning, checking, offering his thoughts and she could hear Dean's responses, a deep rumble and occasional laugh.

They'd spent the Labor Day weekend in Clermont, watching Mach-speed race cars pouring smoke and high-octane fumes in equal amounts as the drivers felt the need for speed up the strip. The fillings in her teeth felt like they were still vibrating faintly from the roar of the engines, seeming to shake the ground, competing with old-style rock over speakers that had been oscillating almost as much. As a consolation prize for missing out on the park concert, it'd been an unqualified success and the weekend away had cemented something between the three of them, she thought. Maybe more so between Dean and her son, given that neither could remove the grins from their faces for the next three straight days, but still an unforgettable time they'd all shared, in one way or another.

That was what it was all about, wasn't it, she thought, turning back to the stove and adjusting the heat under the pot absently. Building memories, getting to know each other through shared experiences. What he'd done before … what she'd done before, that wasn't so important.

"What's for dinner?" Ben asked a couple of minutes later, coming into the kitchen and holding up his hands to show her they were clean. Dean followed him, and sniffed at the smells appreciatively.

"Beef Bourguignon," she told him, glancing at the recipe book on the counter and wondering if her pronunciation had been quite right.

"What?" Ben stopped by the fridge, holding the door open and staring at her.

"Get what you want and close the door," she said, a little repressively. "Don't need to refrigerate the whole house."

"Sorry." Ben took a soda in one hand and pulled out a beer with the other, turning and handing it to Dean. He closed the door with his elbow.

"It's beef stew," Dean told him, taking the beer and grinning at Lisa.

"It is not – _just_ – beef stew," she retorted, waving a hand at the book. "It's French. And delicious." _I hope_, she added to herself.

"Right." Dean nodded vigorously. "Not just stew. _French_ stew."

He pushed Ben out of the kitchen as she took a threatening step toward them, throwing back over his shoulder, "_Delicious_ French stew."

They were becoming a family, she thought, turning away to hide her smile. All they needed was time.

* * *

><p><em>When God cast Lucifer out of Heaven, the archangel had raised an army, and on the earthly plane, he challenged Michael to battle.<em>

Dean wiped the sweat from his face, putting down the nail gun and reaching into his toolbox for a bottle of water. He couldn't get the damned texts out of his head and none of them had any information that was actually of any use.

_Angel fought angel across the deserts for five hundred years_, the monotonous dry narration continued in his mind, as persistent as the inanity of a tv jingle, and with as little chance of getting rid of it, he thought in annoyance. _And Michael touched the earth with his sword when victory was his, a great chasm opening up, and he shore the wings from his brother's back and pitched him into the abyss, with the Morning Star's followers, fallen without grace or will, condemned to the accursed plane for a thousand years_.

He frowned. Even with the five hundred years of fighting, a questionable figure, the math didn't add up to the length of time the devil had spent in the cage.

_The prison was inescapable, a cage of ice and fire on the ninth level of Hell._

Poetic but not exactly helpful, he decided, putting the water back and looking at the frame he was working on as he picked up the nail gun. None of it was helpful. Mythological background at best, wildly imaginative stories at worst. If the fucking thing was inescapable, how was it that there'd been keys and omens and instructions for the heavenly dicks to be able to figure a way to bust the fucking devil free?

There had to be other places, around the country, around the world, where he could get hold of the real deal.

The steady clack-clack of the nail gun, firing into the frame, drove out his questions, thoughts and, more mercifully, the narrative. When he'd finished, he put aside the tools and he and Ted carried the frame to the wall, setting it in.

It wasn't until the last wedges had been hammered in tightly that he remembered another possible source, one that Bobby had mentioned a few times in reference to finding hard-to-get books and the oldest scholars' works. He'd told him about it months ago, he thought, packing his tools into the big metal case, when they'd been trying to get a line on the possible whereabouts of the Horsemen. He ducked his head, brows drawing together in a slight scowl as he remembered Bobby saying Ellie had recommended the store.

_The Hidden Door_. Somewhere in Richmond, he thought, sieving through his memories and trying to damp down a surge of impatience. He could look it up as soon as he got back to the house.

* * *

><p>Six hours later, staring at the listings on the computer, he could feel his stomach twisting itself into knots. It was there. Listed with every other business in Richmond, no treasure map to follow, no secret handshake required. The number was under the address in bold. And the opening hours were there as well, he noted, looking down at his watch. He had an hour before they closed for the evening.<p>

Taking his cell, he got up abruptly and walked to the back door, barely seeing Lisa's startled glance as he strode through the kitchen.

"Dean?"

He stopped at the door, turning to look back at her. "Uh, just got a couple of calls to make," he said, waving a hand toward the garden. "It's, um, quieter out there."

It wasn't like she was banging and crashing around, he thought, looking at her quizzical expression. At that moment, Ben decided to play a game and the familiar, loud strains of the opening credits burst from the living room, belatedly supporting his argument.

Lisa shrugged and turned back to the sink, and he opened the door, slouching through it and walking halfway around the house before he stopped in the grey-purple shadows and dialled.

The phone rang, and after a moment, the call was picked up. He sucked in a breath as a man's voice, deep and cheery, answered.

"Hidden Door, how may I help you?"

"Uh, I'm – uh, looking for some books," Dean said, frowning down at the ground.

"Well, we've certainly got those," the man told him, a hint of amusement in the burr of his voice. "Anything in particular?"

"Yeah, uh, I'm trying to find out about the – uh – levels of Hell." That was blunt, he thought, wondering if he had the right place as the silence on the other end seemed to stretch out for a long time.

"That's a very specialised field of knowledge, sir," the man said finally. "We have a strict policy when it comes to the more rare texts of esoteric knowledge –"

"Yeah, I get it," Dean cut in, recognising the spiel. "Your, um, store was recommended to me as a place I could, uh, find … hard to get books."

"May I ask, recommended by whom?"

"Bobby Singer," Dean said.

"I'm afraid that Mr Singer is quite a recent and only occasional customer, sir," the man said, his tone apologetic. "We usually require a more –"

Dean dragged in a deep breath, his eyes screwing shut. "Ellie Morgan."

Seconds ticked away as silence filled the line again, this time for much longer.

"And your name?" the man asked, a mutter in the background, just audible over the clear line.

He wanted to know how the hell that was important, but the utter seriousness of the man's voice stopped the defensive retort. "Winchester," he told him. "Dean Winchester."

There was a clunk at the other end, faint and unidentifiable background noises filling the line for long moments, then a woman's voice spoke into his ear, cool and crisp.

"Mr Winchester? My name is Katherine Macdonald. We might have the books you're looking for."

"Uh, good, that's good," Dean said, shaking his head a little at the surrealism of the conversation. Didn't these people want to sell their damned books? "I'm, uh, mainly interested –"

"It would be more appropriate if you viewed the texts yourself, before choosing, Mr Winchester," she cut him off. "We can arrange private views and consultations for any time that suits."

"I'm in Indiana," he said.

"This is our after hours contact number, Mr Winchester," she said, seeming to ignore him. "555-2041. You can reach us on that at any time. Why don't you call when you're in Richmond, and we can make arrangements then?"

Holding the phone to punch in the number she'd given him, Dean stared at it disbelievingly for a moment longer, returning it to his ear as he asked, "You can't send me what you've got?"

"I don't think that would be suitable," Katherine said, her tone stiff. "That might sound somewhat cryptic, Mr Winchester, but I believe you'll understand my reticence when you get here."

"Fine," he replied, a hair's breadth from snapping, trying to calculate when he could get enough time to make the round trip. It was a nine or ten hour drive each way, and that on the 64. The job was going to be full on for the next three weeks. It would have to be a weekend. And he couldn't wait. If he left straight from the site on Friday afternoon, he'd be in Richmond around three the next morning. "I'll be there Saturday morning, eight a.m."

"We'll see you then, Mr Winchester," Katherine said.

The call finished and he lowered the cell slowly, staring around the now-dark garden. Who the hell were these people? What the hell was he doing?


	5. Chapter 5 October 2010

**Chapter 5 October 2010**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Cicero, Indiana<strong>_

Dean picked up the canvas duffel, stopping by the front door.

"I'll be back Sunday," he said, opening the door, his gaze running over the black car parked in the drive. He'd reconsidered taking the pickup straight from the job. The Impala could use the run and Lisa and Ben needed a vehicle here anyway.

"Okay," she said, her expression doubtful. "Dean –"

Turning back to look to her. "Yeah?"

Lisa shook her head. "Nothing. Drive safely."

"See you Sunday," he said, and walked out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

Walking to the rear door, he threw back into the back seat, glancing at his watch. It was almost six, but he thought he'd be able to pick up a lot of time later on. Opening the driver's door, he got in, breathing deeply, feeling most of his tension vanish as the familiar smells filled him.

He hadn't realised how much not driving her had been hurting, he thought as he turned the key and the engine rumbled into faithful life. His feet found the pedals and he let her coast down the drive, his hands light on the wheel as he turned right and headed for the first of the roads to take him out of the city's bounds. It only took a few minutes before he reached out automatically for the tape deck, pushing in the tape, a strident bass filling the car as he adjusted the volume.

He wasn't aware that he was smiling, making the next left and joining a fast-moving stream of cars east.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Midnight<strong>_

Lisa tossed restlessly and rolled onto her side, one arm reaching across the bed involuntarily, her eyes snapping open and staring at the far wall when it found the nothing she'd expected. She couldn't relax, memory images and fragments of conversation coming back to her in flashes.

The decision to go to Virginia had come out of the blue, and she'd seen the low-grade tension and anxiety in him when he'd raised it, a faint thrum that reminded her too much of someone who thinks they're about to find what they've been searching for.

He was looking for a way to put Sam to rest, she thought, rolling onto her back. She wasn't sure of how that was possible, and he hadn't gone into a lot of detail of why it was necessary, but the way it drove him, that was obvious and she knew he needed to do whatever it was he was doing, needed to feel as if he were doing something.

A bookstore in Virginia. It shouldn't have raised her internal alarms, but for some reason it did, making her twitchy and nervous with uncertainty. Even if the destination was innocuous, when she'd asked if she and Ben could come along, not to get in his way or interfere with his errand, just for a road-trip, the three of them spending time together, he'd said no immediately. She'd asked him why, trying to keep the hurt and doubt out of her voice, and he'd told her the trip was a part of his life – his _old_ life – and he didn't want them in danger.

Maybe some of that was true, she thought, but she'd never know, not for sure.

She wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, she realised, sitting up and switching on the lamp beside the bed. In the soft glow, it seemed comforting, all her things in their places, photographs and art on the walls, a comfortable, homey room. But as she looked around, she thought something was missing.

Swinging her legs off the edge, she got to her feet, moving around the bed and looking more closely at the dresser and bureau, at the nightstands and closets. His clothes were here, washed and pressed by her, hung neatly on the rail, folded carefully into the drawers. But, she realised, pivoting slowly in a circle and staring around the rest of the room, there was nothing else of him.

He'd explained to her that they'd been on the move. No time and no room to collect the mementos that other people took for granted. No photographs, no framed diplomas, no bundles of letters or cards from people in his past. In their bathroom, he had a toothbrush and an electric shaver, plugged into the wall and used occasionally. That was it.

He hadn't bought anything either, in the last few months, a few items of clothing, some for the job. She'd bought him the nice shirts, the good jacket, still hanging in the closet.

She lifted her robe from the hook behind the door, and pulled it on, feeling the compulsion more strongly, to look, look for what he'd left behind, look for anything that would tell her he was coming back.

The downstairs rooms were as devoid of him as the bedroom had been. A six pack in the fridge. Not even the tattered notebook she'd seen the recipe for gumbo in, stained and filled with his block printing, was there. Did he keep that in the car, she wondered? Along with the handful of old paperbacks she'd seen him leave in the canvas bag when he'd put the Impala away again?

Opening the basement door, she reached in and flipped on the light, the stairs lighting up. The basement was ordinary, not even cobwebs on the joists above her head as she looked down the flight of steps. There was no reason for the slight shiver that snaked down her spine as she walked down the stairs. The corner he'd set up to keep the books he was collecting was on the far side, and she walked over to, pulling the edges of her robe closer around her.

Floor-to-ceiling shelving took up nearly eight feet of wall space on either side of the house's corner pillar. A desk, scarred and cheap from some yard sale and a straight-backed wooden chair had been set in front of them. The desk's top was clear except for the reading lamp in one corner. She leaned forward and turned it on. Behind the desk, the titles and spines of the books that filled the shelves were lit up, the bindings old and torn, a faint smell of mould and mildew seeping slowly from the pages. She took a step around the desk, the titles becoming clearer. _Lucifer, the Fallen_ … _The Lesser Key of Solomon … Resurrection of the Body and Soul … Demonologies of the Ninth Level … Sinistrari …_

She drew back from the books, her skin goosepimpling suddenly. Collectively, they felt evil to her, filled with the unknown darkness that had visited her home once, and that she still had the occasional nightmare about, the face reflecting in the glass tabletop, a vision of a monster.

This was his life, she thought, backing away and turning for the stairs. What did that tell her? What did it say that she was living with a man who read about resurrections and demons, for god's sake?

Slamming the basement door shut behind her, she leaned against it, head bowed and eyes closed.

He knew about this stuff because he fought it, she tried to remind herself. There wasn't anything in him that could deliberately hurt anyone. After four months, she was sure of that.

_But it's still his life_, the voice that questioned all her thoughts pointed out. _It still has a hold of him, or he wouldn't be driving across the country in search of more answers_.

Pushing off the door, Lisa walked slowly across the kitchen and started up the stairs. Time, she thought, time what was he needed. What they both needed. Time to forget about the past, and make a future together. Time for that life to let him go.

_With all the time in the world, he may never let it go_, the voice said sharply. _It may be there's a part of him that wants to be what he is. And you don't want to know that part. Don't want to see it._

She walked into the bedroom and closed the door, mouth thinning out stubbornly. He will let it go, she told herself firmly. No one could want the life he'd lived. He'd see that what they had here, what they were making together, was good and he'd turn away from his past and want something else.

She waited for an argument, but the voice was silent.

She was right about this, she thought, walking to the bed and tossing her robe onto the end.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-64 E, Kentucky<strong>_

The traffic had finally thinned out enough to let the black car step up her pace, and Dean slouched comfortably, eyes fixed to the grey concrete lit up in front of him, the worry and the uncertainties of the last few days dissipating with the deep roar of the engine, the steady thump of the tyres over the concrete seams, the darkness that cocooned him from all sides.

For the next two days, he was, he realised, on his own, no one watching him or expecting anything from him, free of all responsibility and the burden he hadn't even really noticed he'd been carrying lifted, his breath coming deeper, easier, in and out.

He pushed aside the slight stab of disloyalty he felt at the thought. He wasn't trying to get away, just … it was a relief to have no one to look after, for a little while.

The stereo was silent between tracks, then a quiet, delicate picking of guitar poured through the speakers, a gently melancholy melody he knew by heart, the notes lifting and turning him, winding around him, winding him into the quiet of the night. He glanced at the deck, not sure if he could hear it right now.

_So close, no matter how far  
>Couldn't be much more from the heart<em>

_Forever trust in who we are  
>And nothing else matters<br>_

The words, sung soft and sweet, slid through him. He'd thought that, had believed it. Had believed all of it.

_Never opened myself this way  
>Life is ours, we live it our way <em>

He'd thought, for a while, it'd been real. And that'd been his own damned fault, wanting it so bad he hadn't looked closely enough to realise it was just another sucker punch, another lie. Wasn't like he hadn't been warned, either. Tessa had said it. No such things as second chances. Or miracles.

_Trust I seek and I find in you  
>Every day for us something new<br>Open mind for a different view  
>And nothing else matters <em>

His hands closed hard on the wheel, his foot going down involuntarily and the car surging ahead as memory came back, as sweet as the song, so painfully close it sucked the air from his lungs, peeling back everything he'd tried to bury it under.

_Never cared for what they do  
>Never cared for what they know<br>But I know – _

His hand slammed out, hitting the Stop button and silencing the rest.

There were no miracles, no light at the end of the tunnel. You played the hand you were dealt, and if it was a crappy hand, that was just too fucking bad.

He eased off the accelerator gradually, the car's speed dropping. There was no going back, no possibility of it, he thought. Sucking in a deep breath, he reminded himself that he would keep looking for a way to get Sam out. He'd keep searching for an answer. He had a woman and kid who needed him, who he could protect and that was enough. He didn't need to waste his time or energy on thinking about anything else.

His fingers remained tightly wrapped around the wheel, hiding the tremor in them.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Richmond, Virginia<strong>_

On the nightstand, the alarm clock beeped insistently, and Dean groaned, rolling over and slamming a hand down over the top of it, forcing his eyes open and looking around blearily when silence filled the room.

Four hours wasn't nearly enough any more, he thought, sitting up in the motel's bed and pushing the covers aside.

He'd pulled in at three a.m., grateful for the Vacancy sign still lit. Getting the room and dragging his bag inside, he'd stripped and fallen into the bed as soon as the door was locked and the salt lines laid across the threshold and window ledges, and his sleep had been empty, dreamless and silent.

Getting to his feet, he padded across the floor to the bathroom, throwing a glance at the motel's kitchen offerings on the way. No way he was going to start this day on that crap, he thought, turning the taps on full and watching steam begin to fill the shower recess gratefully. He'd head out and grab a decent breakfast before he went to the Hidden Door.

* * *

><p>Thirty minutes later, he was sitting in a booth of a diner across the street from the bookstore, looking down at a plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns and sausage, all glistening with grease in varying shades of brown and gold. The waitress filled his cup, the scent of the coffee almost aphrodisiacal to his nose, and smiled at his appreciative expression as she turned away.<p>

Loading his fork, he wondered if the cautious nature of the people he was about to meet had been habitual, or if there was something happening in the life he'd bowed out of, something that was making the people who might be aware of it more paranoid than normal. Aside from the fact that he'd given two hunters' names as references, he realised he didn't even know how close they were to the flip side of the normal, everyday world.

From what he could see of the façade, the bookstore didn't look all that special. Located in one of the ubiquitous Victorian row-houses in this part of the city, books on display filled both front windows, and a short flight of steps led to the neatly-painted dark green front door. It was squeezed in between an upmarket homewares store and a place that seemed to specialise in hats, residences on either side of those, and more small specialty stores scattered further up and down the street. Nothing about it stood out. Maybe that was good camouflage, he considered, chewing the last of the bacon, or maybe he'd made the drive for nothing.

He finished his breakfast, wiping the last of the yolk from the plate with the last of the sausage and got to his feet, finishing the coffee and pulling a couple of bills from his wallet as he looked again through the window. It was five to eight, but there hadn't been any movement from the place, no one arriving, not even a car had gone up or down in the last twenty minutes.

Crossing the street, he looked around when he reached the steps. Still nothing. The place was practically empty. It was a minute to eight and he climbed the stairs, pushing the discreet button next to the door and turning back to the street, wondering how long he'd have to cool his heels here before someone turned up to open the store.

The clicks and thuds of the locks being undone behind him made him jump a little and he swung around to see a tall, broad-shouldered man pull the door open. Dark hair, threaded with silver, was brushed back from his forehead and fell to his shoulders, and his eyes were unusual, almost golden in colour, with a faint grey cast over the iris, a long, bony and many-times-broken nose jutting out between them.

"Dean Winchester?" the man asked, the burr in his accent stronger in person, and Dean nodded.

"Good then, right on time, glad to see it," the man said, drawing the door wider and making a sweeping invitation with one hand. "Sebastian Macdonald. Come on, come in, don't need to draw everyone's notice by dallying on the doorstep."

Dean walked past him into a wide hall and turned back as Macdonald closed and locked the door behind. Despite the unknown nature of the situation, his early warning system remained calm and prickle-free and he looked around curiously.

The house was a side-hall, a staircase a few feet in from the front door leading to the upper floor, and doorways punctuating the left-hand side of the wall in front of him and down the hall to another closed door at its end.

The doors next to him were a pair, glass-paned two-thirds of the height and closed. Through the glass, he could see shelving and tables, books stacked and piled everywhere, old-fashioned lamps with coloured glass shades and thick carpet over the floors.

"Straight down the hall," Macdonald told him, waving a hand toward the door at the end. "We don't open properly till ten, should give us enough time to sort you out."

"Uh, you don't ship your stock?" Dean asked, turning and walking down the hall.

"Oh, yeah, the regular stuff," Macdonald said. "Not the rest. Knowledge is power, right enough, and we like to get a feel for customers before we sell them anything."

"That's an interesting way to do business," Dean remarked, stopping as he reached the end of the hall and moving to one side.

Macdonald leaned past him, lifting the brass knocker in the middle of the black-painted door and rapping hard twice. He grinned over his shoulder at Dean.

"Not in this business to make money, so much," he said, stepping back as another set of locks clanked from the other side of the door. "Chasing the dollar's a game for them's without imagination."

He felt his brows rise at that comment. "That sounds like the opinion of someone who's never been needing."

To his surprise, Macdonald laughed, slapping a big hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, that's true enough."

The door opened into a dark passage and Dean hesitated.

"Come in. Sorry it's dark here, someone has been telling me for the past week that he was going to replace the bulbs but somehow has not managed to get around to it," a woman's voice came from the darkness, educated and crisp and edged with an acerbic bite.

"Uh –"

"Yeah, pay no attention to the nagging," Macdonald said from behind him, giving him a push. "Light went out a day ago, and I just haven't got around to it yet."

There was a sharp sniff from the gloom and Dean saw a shadow detach itself from the wall, following the woman as she walked away from them, hearing Macdonald closing and locking the door behind them.

Turning a corner, he had a moment's warning before the next doorway, seeing the woman's tall figure clearly in the daylight that spilled through an open doorway into the hall. The entrance into a wide, long room, flooded with early morning sunshine was still a major contrast, and he squinted as he took in big, comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs in two groups, walls, lined with more shelves, filled with books, vibrantly coloured rugs scattered over the honey-coloured polished floorboards. He stopped and focussed on the woman standing in front of him.

She was tall, slender and straight-backed, wearing a long skirt in a dark brown, suede-like material and a button-through blouse in some small floral pattern. Dark brown hair, tinted with shades of red in the bright light, was gathered up into a knot at the nape of her neck. A strong face, with high cheekbones and a patrician nose, a porcelain complexion, wide, full mouth and arresting dark-grey eyes, stared back at him.

"Mr Winchester, this is my wife, Katherine," Macdonald said, walking around him to stand beside her.

"Mr Winchester, I'm glad to meet you at last," Katherine said, holding out her hand. He looked down at it, long-fingered and elegant, and put out his own, hiding his surprise at the strength in her grip.

"At last?" he asked, flicking a glance at the man beside her.

"Well, we'd heard of you, of course," Macdonald said, shrugging. "You and your brother and the meddling of the other planes and all that."

_All that_, Dean wondered?

"Your name has been in the lists for a long time, Mr Winchester," Katherine continued as she turned away and walked toward a set of doors that led into another room. "You'd be surprised how many know it."

"Lists?" Dean shook his head, following her as Macdonald waited for him to go ahead. "What lists?"

"Winchesters and Campbells," Katherine told him over her shoulder, crossing a large dining room and going through another pair of glass-paned doors into a kitchen. It was also generously proportioned, with a big pine table taking up the centre of the room and a wood-fired black range at the end. "All the way back to the First Falling, and we didn't find the other references until it was too late."

His thoughts were reeling and he wanted to her stop, just slow the fuck down, and explain what the hell she was talking about. She opened a door to one side of the kitchen and crossed a narrow hall, opening another door and leaning forward to pull on the string light switch. Dean stopped behind, looking over her shoulder at a long set of wooden steps.

"Where the hell are we going?" he asked, glancing back at Macdonald who'd stopped behind him.

"You have questions about Hell," Katherine said, turning her head to him. "This is where the answers are."

"Some of them, at any rate," her husband amended, half under his breath.

Following her down the stairs, the questions he had disappeared as they reached the bottom and he looked around.

The entire room, what seemed to be the entire space under the house, was filled with books, ancient and modern, bound or rolled or tied together, the scent of old paper mingling with a deeper scent of crushed herbs, fragrant oils, burning somewhere in the huge room. The ceilings – the floor, he guessed – above them was very high, long pendant lights illuminating the room at intervals, glass-shaded lamps and sconces adding golden glows around the walls, set into the bookshelves or in the small gaps between them. Shelving lined every wall, floor to ceiling, ladders on rails giving access to the highest shelfs, and free-standing bookcases formed walls and alleys through most of the centre. At one end, a long, wide table, surrounded by a dozen unmatched chairs, was piled high with books, most of which, he noted, seemed to be hand-bound.

He turned around slowly, his gaze taking in the whole room. "This is your, uh, Hell collection?"

Behind him, Seb snorted. "Ah, well, it's one of them."

Katherine sent him a repressive look, turning her gaze back to Dean. "You can see why we couldn't just 'send you what we've got', Mr Winchester?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, nodding. "So, how'm I supposed to find what I need … here?"

"Well, that depends on exactly what it is you're looking for," Macdonald told him, walking past to the table and waving a hand at the books there.

Dean looked at him, wetting his lips. "I need a way to get someone out of Hell."

"There are many ways to achieve –" Katherine began, gesturing toward the table.

"Out of Lucifer's cage," Dean clarified, cutting her off.

"Ah, yeah," Macdonald said slowly, his gaze shifting to his wife. "Well, that – that's not so easy."

* * *

><p>Sitting on the edge of the bed in the motel room, Dean stared at the pile of books on the table, his thoughts circling around what he'd learned in the basement library of the store.<p>

"_There are nine levels," _Katherine had told him_. "In the old days, each level was run by an archdemon."_

Archdemons were, apparently, the angels who'd fallen with Lucifer when Michael'd done his butchery on their wings. They were impervious to the weapons humanity had for other demons. They were, at their core, still angels. Like Lucifer. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and got to his feet, grabbing the keys from the table and heading for the door.

It had been known, it seemed, to a lot of people, that the angels had been commanded to get him out of Hell. Unlocking the car and wrenching the door open, Dean felt a repeat of the squirming discomfort that had hit him when Katherine had spoken matter-of-factly about it. He couldn't bring himself to ask where they'd gotten the information, but Seb had commented that the disruption between the planes had been visible to quite a few psychics they knew, later on, and he'd felt the anger at his thoughts of another betrayal dissipate gradually.

Dropping into the driver's seat, he pulled the door closed and sat there for a moment, thumb drumming on the wheel, the ignition key still in his hand.

Three of the archdemons had been killed when the angels had seiged Hell. No one knew what'd happened to the other six. One of them should've taken over the running of Hell when Lucifer was locked back up. But instead, a crossroads demon had taken the plane's throne and proclaimed himself King of Hell.

Crowley.

"_You've got no idea of the power of those archdemons_," Seb had said, shaking his head. "_You think human-based demons are bad, there's just no comparison_."

He'd heard, in their voices, seen in their expressions, an uneasiness when they'd talked about the current ruler. Not only was Crowley not supposed to be there, but the demon was changing the way things worked in the accursed plane, changing the natural order that'd kept it all going since before there'd even been angels and demons.

"_Hell has always been there_," Katherine'd explained, her gaze fixed on him. "_But it wasn't until Lucifer that the souls of humanity were tortured in a specific way – a way that stripped everything from them but their innate power_."

"_Innate – power?"_

"_Oh, yeah_," Sebastian had interjected. "_The power of Heaven, the power of Hell, that's derived directly from the souls contained there. Billions of them. The demons that you see up here, the greater and the lesser ones, they can all tap into a bit of it. The stronger the demon, the more power it has_."

"_It works the same with the angels_," Katherine had added. "_The archangels can draw on the most power. The seraphim, the cherubim, the Powers and the other ranks can only draw what is allotted to them_."

It explained why it'd been easy for the high-up dicks to render Cas powerless, he thought. Explained too how he'd gotten his mojo back, when God had reassembled him. It was all interesting, but no help to him getting Sam out of the hole.

He started the car, reversing out of the motel slot and driving out of the lot, looking around for a place to get something to eat. He'd thought about heading back to Indiana that night, but had decided against it. Everything he'd learned, everything they'd told him was still spinning him around. He wanted some time to get it straight before he returned to his normal life.

* * *

><p>Two hours later, he closed the second book, and got up, gathering the wrappings and containers from his take-out and dumping them in the trash, grabbing another beer from the small fridge and returning to the table. Dropping back into the chair, he thought about what he'd read, trying to ignore the knots in his stomach.<p>

Hell was a different dimension entirely from earth. It had different rules, different physical laws, different effects on the soul and the mind and the body. When he'd been there, he'd been a soul. No body. But he'd remembered his body. Had been unable to separate himself from those memories, in fact. Memories of nerve and muscle, blood and bone. And because those things had been memory, welded to his soul, there'd been no possibility – ever – of being able to overload the nervous system, his mind unable to protect itself or the soul from the agonies that'd been inflicted.

The angels had gone into the plane in what Katherine – and the books she'd given him – had called constructs. Physical manifestations of the harmonic frequencies that comprised their true form. Dean snorted, swallowing another mouthful of beer as he considered that. _My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler Building_, Cas had said, a little defensively, he'd thought at the time, at his little brother's comment.

The constructs had meant the plane had kept a fixed layout. No switching around midstream which is how it worked for souls. Or for the very rare psychics who could cross over just in mind.

To get in, he'd have to be flesh and bone. He'd need to find a gate or a guide. Cross over. Figure out how to get through nine levels of demons and tortured souls, traps, walls, mazes and impossible obstacles. Find a way to open the cage from the outside, in Hell. And a way to prise Lucifer out of Sam's body, fight off Michael and drag his little brother's body back up through all those levels, without Crowley finding out, without attracting the attention of any of the demons … he closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair. _Not too hard_, he thought, feeling a headache developing.

"_You know of anyone who'd been in and out?"_ he'd asked Katherine. She'd looked back at him for a long time without answering, and he'd had the distinct impression that she'd been debating what to tell him.

"_No,"_ she'd said. _"There are records of those who have gone in –"_

"_Myths," _he'd suggested, and she'd shrugged. _"But no one recent?"_

She'd looked away then, and he'd felt the lie_. "No."_

He finished the beer and looked at the bottle of whiskey, sitting on the nightstand. He'd leave it, he thought. Until … until he felt like it.

"_You gave us Eleanor Morgan as your referral,"_ Katherine had said, just before he'd left. _"How do you know her?"_

He'd looked at the books in the box he was carrying. _"Uh, we – we hunted together, a few times,"_ he'd told her finally, not wanting to say anything else about it.

"_She mentioned you,"_ Katherine had told him. _"And your brother."_

Unable to work out what she was trying to get from him, he'd let that go.

"_We see Ellie, from time to time,"_ she'd added a moment later, exhaling softly. _"If you wanted to leave a message."_

That had stabbed into him, his mouth thinning, his hands tightening around the box until he could feel the indentations his fingers were leaving in the cardboard.

What the hell could he say, he'd wondered? Come back? She could've come back at any time, without needing him to say it. If she'd wanted to.

"_No,"_ he'd told the woman, turning for the door, wanting to get out of there.

He'd been able to see her, with those people, head bowed over books in the basement, searching for answers, searching for information, talking to them. He thought they fit her description of her friends, on the edge of the life, knowing about it, yet not hunters. Friends, family, other, he'd asked her once. _All of the above_, she'd replied.

There'd been something in the manner of both Macdonalds, he thought. Some hint of sympathy or understanding he hadn't been nail down. Had Ellie told them why she'd left and never come back, he wondered uncomfortably? Even if she had, he'd gotten the impression from Katherine that she wouldn't share that confidence. Not even if he'd asked.

* * *

><p><em><strong>One week later. Cicero, Indiana<strong>_

They don't call it fall for nothing, Dean thought as he raked the week's droppings to a pile in the middle of the lawn. The garden had a lot of trees; beautiful, big trees that kept it cool in the summer and let the sun's weak warmth through in the winter. But in spring, the yard was covered with fallen blossoms, and in fall, with fallen leaves. The work was soothing, he had to admit. Purely physical and gave his brain time off.

He had lists now. Lists of the things he'd need to open a gate, always assuming he could get a location. Lists of the things he'd need to cross over. Lists of what each level comprised of – the basic stuff at least. He still hadn't been able to find a way to get a mortal out. Or a way to open the cage from within Hell. He'd had to return Death's ring. The other three were sitting in a small bag in the trunk of the car, useless without the fourth.

There were rituals for asking favours from the fourth Horseman. Most of them looked hinky, but a couple seemed to be the real deal. Of course, he reminded himself, both of those spells had specified ingredients he'd never even heard of, and couldn't imagine how to get.

The books he'd brought back had been a helluva improvement over the others, and he knew a lot more about Hell now than he'd really wanted to, and he might've been an inch or two closer to rescuing his brother, but that was all.

He dropped the rake and picked up the garden bag, shovelling leaves into it frustratedly. It was almost the end of October. Sam had been down there for five months. He knew what that was in Hell's time. He dropped the bag, hunching over, trying to keep those thoughts out of his head, knowing they wouldn't help, they'd only make him weaker.

* * *

><p>"Mom, don't you think we're a bit too old for Halloween?" Ben asked, standing by the front door, covered from head to foot with a plain white cotton sheet. Droopy eyeholes showed the matt black greasepaint that surrounded the boy's eyesockets.<p>

Shifting restlessly from foot to foot at the foot of the stairs, Dean agreed. He was already sweating under the synthetic hair suit, and he hoped it would be a helluva lot colder outside. The only upside to the whole thing was that under the lightweight shaggy costume head, no one would be able to tell who he was. He reached out absently to grab a handful of candy from the big glass bowl on the table beside him.

"Hey," Lisa turned and swatted his hand. "That's it, okay? It's for the kids. Put your head on."

He shoved the handful into his mouth, chewing as he lowered the full werewolf head over his own. He was gonna suffocate in here, he thought, turning from side to side, hardly able to see a thing.

"How 'bout we call it our last year?" Lisa was saying to Ben. She was dressed in a long, tight black dress, a black and red vampire cloak rising up behind her head, pale make up making a striking contrast with heavily kohled eyes and vivid, blood-red lips. "C'mon, you guys, it'll be fun!"

Dean couldn't see Ben's eyes, the sheet covering him throwing too much shadow through the two eyeholes, but he caught the boy's beseeching turn of the head, giving him a shrug.

It wasn't his favourite holiday, he thought, following Ben out onto the porch and hitting the doorframe as he misjudged the width of the door. Sam'd hated it, from the moment he'd been old enough to understand it and had flatly refused to go out, no matter where they'd been.

Stepping cautiously down the porch steps and making the path without tripping over his oversized feet, he followed the swirling Lugosi cape and fluttering white sheet through the front gate and out onto the street.

Ghosts, movie characters, witches, vampires, nurses, firemen, devils and green-headed aliens wandered along the road, some adult-sized, mostly half that height. The smell of hot dogs and frying burgers managed to infiltrate the wolf's head somehow, and he turned toward it, running into someone who stood just below his eyeline.

"Ow, oh, sorry," Nancy's voice came to him indistinctly, muffled through the head, and Dean turned from side to side, trying to find her.

"Sorry, can't see a thing in here," he said and took an exaggerated step to one side.

"Oh, that you, Dean?" Nancy asked, sounding closer. "Sid was just behind me, he's a pirate tonight."

Looking down, he saw the top of her elaborate headdress but couldn't force the costume to dip any lower without bending over.

"Uh, yeah, I'll, um, catch up with you guys later, I gotta – uh - go," he said, catching a glimpse of Ben's sheet a couple of houses up.

He abandoned the sidewalk, too many near misses on its narrow width, and walked on the road, wondering what Bobby'd say if he saw him. Idjit, he thought, mouth tugging up reluctantly. In front of him, a crowd of pint-sized superheroes ran across the road, clutching their candy sacks and giggling.

He saw Ben, talking to a stormtrooper and fairy, and stopped, pivoting slowly on one heel as the mask over his head gave him glimpses of the scene in limited slivers.

Lisa was talking to a witch, although, Dean noticed, the witch in question was definitely more of a Bewitched type than the green-faced wicked variety. She was wearing a tall, pointed black hat and that's where the resemblance to the archetypal witch stopped. Long, blonde hair was loose under the hat, framing a pretty face with large blue eyes. The little black dress was several times tighter than Lisa's, stopping mid-thigh, the bodice and skirt straining to keep the witch's considerable assets from public indecency. Long, shapely legs in sheer black stockings and ankle-high black stiletto-heeled boots completed the costume, and he was sure he'd seen the whole outfit before, in a strip club in Atlantic City, he thought, chasing the memory. The girl wearing it had been a very striking-looking brunette.

He walked across to them, hands held out slightly in front of him, to warn him of short obstacles the head wouldn't let him see.

"Oh, Dean, this is Anne-Marie, she lives on the next corner," Lisa said, turning to him.

Anne-Marie smiled up at him, twirling a finger in a long, blonde curl. "Pleased to meet you," she said, smiling. "I just _love_ werewolves, so, you know, powerful and sexy."

She laid a hand over the synthetic fur covering his arm, squeezing a little and he blinked behind the mask, a hundred memories hitting him _… a fire raging along a ridgeline and eyes like lambent fire staring at him from the darkness … Sam, lying on the floor, his father frozen in a two-handed stance, a man transforming back to human as the echoes of the shots slowly faded in the room … the recoil hitting his shoulder as the bow had released and the long ululation and his shock when he'd seen the middle-aged teacher lying at his feet … Sam's face as he'd listened to Madison and shaken his head, not wanting to hear it …_

_You love to see a chest ripped open, the heart torn out? Or watch the agonising transformation when flesh and bone melts and reforms, from human to monster?_ The thought flashed through his mind as he took a step backward, her hand dropping away.

"I – yeah, Lise – this is – not … no," he said, not sure what he was trying to say, turning away and heading back down the street.

"Well!"

"He's – uh – I think he has some issues with – um – Halloween." He heard Lisa say to the woman. Issues. Yeah, right.

_Dean, Samhain is the damn origin of Halloween. The Celts believe that October 31st was the one night of the year when the veil was the thinnest between the living and the dead, and it was Samhain's night. I mean, masks were put on to hide from him, sweets left on doorsteps to appease him, faces carved into pumpkins to worship him. He was exorcised centuries ago, and it wasn't just the Celts. Nearly every culture in the world has a festival for the dead._

It was seriously wrong, he thought, that the myths were still there, the monsters were still there but the world thought they'd all gone. He felt for the catch on the gate and pushed it open, pulling the wolf head off as he stopped in the shadows of the house, his chest lifting as he dragged in a deep breath, expelled it fast, then sucked in another.

_Not your life anymore, remember?_ He ducked his head, dropping the costume mask on the ground as a shudder rippled through him. Not looking at it, pretending it didn't exist … that it was all costumes, candy and a fun night for kids … didn't make it go away.

He reached down and grabbed the head, walking around the side of the house and letting himself in through the back door.

* * *

><p>Lisa watched him through the mirror as she sat at the vanity and cleaned off her make up. He was lying on the bed, in shorts and a tee shirt, his gaze fixed on the window, his face shadowed.<p>

"You alright?" she asked, turning to look at him.

He drew in a breath and turned his head. "Yeah, just – I don't know, it didn't feel – I'm sorry," he got out with a one-shouldered shrug.

"No," she said, looking back at the mirror, leaning forward to wipe away the last of the cream. "I'm sorry."


	6. Chapter 6 November 2010

**Chapter 6 November 2010**

* * *

><p>"Do you think the turkey is ready?" Lisa looked around the kitchen, pushing a loose strand of hair off her face with floury fingers. It was the first Thanksgiving dinner she'd done for so many, and she scanned the room again, looking for anything she might've forgotten, mislaid, not kept an eye on.<p>

_The sauce! Had she done the sauce?_ Her eyes flashed to the table and her shoulders slumped as she saw the bowl, filled and ready.

"Relax, this is supposed to be fun, isn't it?" Dean rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "It's no good asking me about the turkey." He considered that statement for a moment. "At least, not until it's ready to eat."

She leaned back against him briefly. "That's too late."

"It'll be fine."

"Can you get it out of the oven, at least? It weighs a ton." She went to the kitchen doorway to triple check the dining table, biting her lower lip as she tried to look critically around the room.

The table was the new one, seating six, and Ben had done a good job of laying it, the cloth crisp and hanging evenly, the centrepiece of small pumpkins, corncobs, rosy apples and bracken looking not too cheesy, the colours matching her place settings. To either side of the vegetable and fruit arrangement, long, slender candles in silver-plated holders added a feeling of grace to the room.

Her sister, brother-in-law and niece were coming, a change from her and Ben going over to their place for the holiday, and there was a warring mix of emotions filling her about the visit. She loved her sister and she knew it was returned … she didn't think Beth was even aware of the faintly superior air she adopted when they got together for the holidays, always at their house, since her family was the complete one.

This year, it would be different, she thought, giving the room a final glance.

She turned back in time to see Dean opening the oven. "Put the oven mitts on!"

"Yeah. Right."

He grabbed them from the bench, slipping them over his hands. The roasting dish only just fit inside the oven's interior, and she watched him slide his hands around it cautiously, easing it out inch by inch. He grunted as he lifted it to the stove top.

The scent of the roasted bird and vegetables filled the room and they both breathed in appreciatively.

"Smells done."

She came up beside him, slipping a skewer into the breast and pulling it out again. The juices ran clear.

"Thank you, God. I think it's done."

* * *

><p>"Can you pass the sauce, Aunty Beth?"<p>

"So, uh, what job are you working on now, Dean?"

"I saw the most amazing dress on sale yesterday; I came this close to getting it, Lise."

"Uh, we're working on the old hotel, down near the train station. Job will probably last another three months."

"Ben, use your fork!"

"We're looking at houses now."

"Really, I need a new dress; the last time I bought one was over a year ago."

"Dean, could you pass the sweet potato?"

"What about you?"

"Oh, partner next year, for sure. A lot more hours and a whole new tax bracket, but we're ready. Beth wants another couple of kids."

The conversations criss-crossed the table in cheerful chaos, accompanied by the clink of china, occasional chimes of the crystal glasses and the baby's intermittent demands, expressed by banging on the high chair tray with her spoon. The turkey had dwindled to a third of its original size and the platters of roasted and steamed and mashed vegetables were almost empty.

Dean looked around as Steve turned to his wife to ask a question. The candles had burned down two-thirds of their size, the soft light painting the faces surrounding him with a warm glow, gleaming on Lisa's smooth, dark hair as she leaned over to talk to Ben; twinkling on Beth's earrings when she turned to respond to her husband.

He leaned back in his chair, letting out his breath softly. He was here, in the middle of it. And it … it wasn't how he'd thought he would feel. Maybe if the faces around the table had been his family – Sam, Bobby, maybe even Ellen and Jo – he'd be feeling differently. He didn't know. This was noise and light and life, he guessed. But he felt like a bit actor in a bad play, one written with little meaning and no ending.

"You okay?" Lisa leaned towards him, concern filling her eyes. Dean forced a smile as he nodded.

_Fake it till you make it. Right?_

"Yeah, sure. Just wondering what's for dessert," he said lightly. She smiled at him.

"Pie. Two kinds. In the kitchen. After you help me clear all this away."

"Let's do it," he said, looking around the table and getting to his feet.

* * *

><p>The dining room had been returned to tidiness. The kitchen was a disaster area. Lisa and her sister were sitting on one sofa in the living room, heads bowed closed together as they talked quietly. Dean sat on the other sofa, beside Beth's husband, both of them watching the game on the television. Abruptly he felt the need to get out, to be by himself. He stood up, and waved the beer bottle in his hand at Steve.<p>

"Get you another?"

Steve's attention was locked onto the screen in front of him. "Yeah, that'd be good," he said without looking up.

Taking the empties to the kitchen, he dropped them into the bin and turned around to the fridge, getting a fresh bottle out. There was nothing wrong with Lisa's sister and husband, he thought, carrying the beer to the living room and holding it out to Steve. Like Sid, and his wife, they were nice people, perfectly ordinary, their conversation about mortgages and investment accounts, the price of child-care and the cost of schooling, films seen, current events, taxes, house maintenance, cars that got great fuel economy.

Going back to the kitchen, he opened the back door, walking out into the yard, leafless now and in shades of muted green, and gray and black.

The air was cold, crisp in his nose and throat.

"Cas? Castiel, can you hear me?" he whispered self-consciously, looking around. "Cas?"

Nothing happened. He turned slowly, gaze scanning the yard carefully. He'd tried before, with the same result. Either Cas was very busy up in Heaven, or now that Dean was in civilian life, he wasn't going to get an answer.

Tucked to one side of the garden, the small bench seat Lisa had convinced him to build was placed out of the way, half under the trees. He walked over to it and sat down, not sure of what he wanted to do or even what he was doing here. Living a normal life? A life where the biggest problem was wondering if the furnace would hold out for another year? If the bills were all going to come in together?

He'd thought he'd wanted this, this peace and quiet, the contentment of knowing what each day would bring, of having someone close to him, of learning to be a husband, a father, in a family. He'd thought he'd relish the chance to just be himself, without the demands of Heaven or Hell on his shoulders.

Would it be different if Sam wasn't … lost to him, he wondered? Would it be different if having a family included having _his_ family, if not next door then at least in the country, somewhere. He hadn't spoken to Bobby since August. Or anyone else.

He'd become good at pushing away his past, burying the memories and the pain and the despair deep below the surface. It worked … to a certain point. But the mind, like the body, didn't tolerate wounds that were unhealed, that festered, even those that were out of sight. Especially those that were out of sight. He had an uneasy feeling that he would only be able to bury his past for so long; not looking at it, not acknowledging it. Because there would come a time when it would break free and force him into dealing with it.

The problem was that he didn't dare touch those walls now. If they broke, he would be returned to the mess he'd been after Kansas, or worse. Lisa was a good person, and she cared, he knew she did. But she didn't want to know what'd happened in the past. She wanted the man she saw every day. And it wasn't – entirely – him.

He shook his head. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Nothing had changed, not really.

* * *

><p>Lisa and Beth came into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway.<p>

"Wow, how did you find him again?" Beth said to her sister.

Lisa shook her head. "I don't know, just lucky I guess."

Standing at the sink, up to his elbows in suds, Dean concentrated on getting the pot he held under the water clean. On the drainer and along the cleaned counter, the stacks of clean, washed dishes were arrayed, smallest to largest, air drying. He was down to the cookware now, and after a quick grin over his shoulder, he turned away and kept going with the pan he was scrubbing out. With the choice of talking with Steve about the current state of housing finance and cleaning, he'd decided to wash up.

He heard the low murmur of the women's conversation behind him as they took out clean dishtowels and started drying and putting away, and let it pass over him. There were too many conversations on this day he had no idea of and wasn't interested in hearing, and with the repetitious labour, he'd been thinking about the angel, not sure why Cas wasn't answering. The devil had been locked up, but he knew that wasn't the end of it. Couldn't be the end of it because the dicks who'd stirred the mess up to begin with where still out there. Gabriel was dead. Michael locked down. Raphael and who knew how many others were still flying free.

It didn't take long for the work to be finished; the kitchen clean and tidy again and he picked up a dry dishtowel and dried his hands.

Beth walked over to him, reaching past to hang the damp dishtowel she'd used on the rail beside him. He moved aside a little as she turned to him. A little taller than Lisa, with the same dark hair, cut into a more fashionable bob that swung just above her shoulders, and the same dark brown eyes as her sister, Beth was the elder, by four years. Her skin was fairer than Lisa's, made-up carefully, and her figure more rounded, full breasts and hips that might've been the result of having a child, or a good surgeon, he couldn't tell. The dress she wore was simple and elegant, matching the understated gold earrings, slender and expensive watch and the two rings, one set with a diamond, the other a thick gold band. Lisa had told him that Beth had been a corporate secretary before she'd been married, working two floors up from her husband. She knew how to make an impression, he thought.

"A man who does the dishes without asking, you are a rare bird," she said, looking up at him. He shrugged, deciding that silent modesty was the best response. He could hardly tell her that washing a mountain of dishes was preferable to making conversation.

"Lisa says that you're really good with Ben too."

Dean glanced away, gesturing vaguely, wondering where this was going. "He's easy to be good with; she's done a really good job of raising him."

"She has. You're right." She leaned closer to him, lowering her voice. "Dean, she's my only sister, and she hasn't had the easiest time of it. So I hope, I really hope, that you're thinking about the future, as well as the present."

It hadn't been exactly what he'd been expecting and he met her gaze steadily. "I wouldn't hurt Lisa – or Ben, Beth. You have my word on that."

She pressed her lips together. "That's all I wanted to know."

Steve came into the kitchen and joined them. "Ready to go?"

Beth nodded. "We had a great time, Dean. Thanks."

He watched them leave the kitchen, hearing them talking to Lisa and Ben in the hall, his expression thoughtful. The hell had prompted that, he wondered?

Walking out down the hall, he came up beside Lisa, walking out to the porch with her and slipping his arm around her waist as they watched Steve settle the baby into the car seat in the back of their car, waving as they got and Steve reversed down the drive and onto the street.

Beside him, Lisa looked up, smiling widely. "I thought that went pretty well?"

"As good as it gets," he remarked, ducking his head a little to kiss her temple. "How much of the pecan pie is left?"

She giggled and he smiled down at her for a second, then lifted his head as he felt a slight prickle of nerves down the back of his neck. Looking around, he could feel …something. A sense, vague and unsettling, of being watched. It vanished a moment later, and he turned with Lisa, heading back into the house.

They walked back into the kitchen, and Lisa looked around the clean room for a moment, then turned to him, slipping her arms around his waist and laying her cheek against his chest. He put his arms around her, the response almost automatic now.

"I've been wanting to do that for the last six years," she said in a low voice, sighing. "Thanks for making it happen."

His mouth tugged at one corner. "You made it happen, Lise. I just did the dishes."

Lifting her head to look up at him, she grinned. "That was the best part."

One brow rose quizzically. "Nope, the food was – definitely – the best part."

Her arms tightened around him as she pressed closer. "You feel like watching some TV? Or fooling around?"

Closing his eyes, he exhaled softly against her hair. "Uh, no. Not really. There are a couple of things I want to find out about. I'll do some reading for awhile."

"Dean, are you sure you're alright?" She lifted her head, tilting it back to look more carefully at him. "You seemed to be somewhere else a lot today?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Lise. It was a good day. I – I'm just a bit distracted. I thought I'd found a lead on something, but it turned out I hadn't," he told her, easing back from her slightly. "I got that whole, uh, OCD thing happening, just want to check those references again."

She took his answer at face value, nodding. "Okay, I'll see you later then. Pie's in the fridge, by the way."

He kissed her lightly and let her go, watching her walk into the living room as he stood indecisively in the middle of the room.

He had no references to check, he'd read and reread and reread all of the books, including the ones from the store in Richmond, he'd been able to find. He knew them practically off by heart. He had some possible ways, theoretically possible ways, to get into Hell but no actual way to do it. But the thought of another evening, spent in front of the TV, time going by, wasted, without even realising it, made doing anything else preferable.

The computer sat in an oddly shaped alcove between the living room and the hall. He sat down and pressed the power button, rubbing his eyes as he waited for it to load.

With the search screen in front of him, the cursor flashing steadily, he thought about what he could possibly look for. There were five saved searches, each one relating to the things he thought he needed to break into the accursed plane. Calling up the first, he hit Enter and watched it run.

* * *

><p>Sitting in the living room, Dean watched the grey light filter through the curtains, setting his glass down on the table and getting to his feet. The nightmare had come sometime in the early hours, driving him out of the bedroom and down here, where he could lose himself in the bottle and his memories, without worrying about anyone seeing him.<p>

The prickle at the back of his neck had come back, and he walked to the windows, easing the edge of the curtain aside and looking out. Frost coated everything, the street silent and still and white and the prickle strengthened a little.

Turning for the hall, he grabbed his coat and pulled on his boots, opening the front door and stepping out, breathing in the cold air and feeling it mingle with the taste of whiskey over his tongue.

He checked the houses, and the cars, stopping and peering at the white-edged windows. Somewhere further up the street, he heard an engine start, and he stepped out onto the road, a white pickup rolling slowly down a drive and turning right, the engine chugging in first as the pickup crested the low hill and disappeared down the other side.

The sensation vanished and he rubbed the back of his neck, looking up the street. It wasn't the first time, he'd had that feeling, being watched, someone taking an interest in him, but he'd never seen anything.

Walking up the road, he saw the For Sale sign out the front of the house the pickup had come out of, and he walked across the brittle, frosty grass, looking in the windows. The place was empty, no furniture, not even window coverings. Turning away, he hurried up the low rise and stopped at the crest, looking down the street. The pickup had gone.

He turned away and walked back to his house, wondering if any of it meant anything, or was just one of those random events that had triggered his internal alarms for no reason.

* * *

><p>Dean pushed the goggles back from his face, and wiped the sweat away. Dusk was coming earlier and earlier, and the streetlights were already shining. He checked his tools, cleaned and oiled them, and packed them away into the lock box, tossing in the goggles, hard hat and gloves after.<p>

Sid had initiated a tentative routine of buying him a drink on a Friday evening a few weeks ago, usually not more than an hour's conversation at the small neighbourhood bar. He didn't mind his neighbour, who was friendly and harmless, but the casual routine had quickly become a chore, trying to find enough conversation without drawing on anything from his past was more tiring than spending a night hunting.

Sam had remarked once that he was anti-social. He realised now it was true. He couldn't have cared less if he didn't have to come up with trivial and meaningless conversations to get through a day looking normal. He missed talking to his brother. Missed talking to Bobby.

Giving a mental shrug, he climbed into the truck. A beer would go down alright. And Sid wasn't that taxing.

* * *

><p>Finding a parking place in front of the bar, Dean got out and locked the truck, walking into the warm and familiar fug of scents in the small place and looking around for his neighbour. Sid waved from beside the pool table, a bottle in his hand.<p>

"Hey, Dean, thought you might not make it." The man's cheerful face beamed at him and he couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, Sid felt the need to be so damned friendly. Was that just how people were, he asked himself? Normal people?

"No, just running late with the job today." Dean glanced at the bartender, nodding at her tacit question as he walked across the room.

"You want to play a game?"

He eyed the table, wondering briefly if he could take Sid for some cash. Looking back at his neighbour, whose expression was transparently enthusiastic, he jettisoned the idea. Like shooting ducks in a barrel, it wouldn't be even remotely fair.

He walked over to the bar while Sid racked the balls, taking the beer the bartender had put out for him and leaving a twenty on the counter. In any other company, he would have stayed here for a couple of hours, shooting pool and drinking, listening to the music. But he knew it would be one game and one beer and then home. He didn't have the conversation in him to drag it out any longer.

"You can break," Sid said, waving a hand at the table. Putting the bottle on the nearby table, Dean chose a stick and leaned over the table, lining up the white ball with those behind it. The crack of the cue hitting the ball was sharp and precise, and Sid's face fell as three balls richoted off the cushions and dropped obediently into their pockets.

"Wow, you must have played a lot of pool on the road, huh?" He looked at the table as Dean moved around, lining up the white ball and sinking another large.

"Yeah, not much else to do in a lot of places. Got kind of good at it." Looking across at the man, he let the white miss the next one, hiding a smile as Sid eagerly picked up his stick and scurried around the table.

Growing up, moving around, he'd spent a lot of time in innumerable bars, playing for cash, hustling the locals. He and Sam had kept it up, for a while, needing the ready money and usually able to clear a few hundred with an evenings' play. The memories brought a smile, but it was edged by the knowledge that he'd never do it again. He watched Sid bounce the white off the side cushion and miss his ball completely.

He looked at his beer, swallowing another mouthful, and deliberately cocked up the last shot, sending the black ball spinning down the table and into the corner pocket. Sid gave a shout of triumph.

"Guess you're out of practice?" He grinned at Dean. Dean lifted a shoulder in a wry shrug, and returned the cue to the stand.

"You know," Sid continued, walking around the table to pick up his beer. "Next time, we should make it, um, interesting."

Repressing the desire to laugh out loud, Dean said, "Uh, yeah, maybe." He finished his beer and glanced at his watch.

"'Bout that time. Feel like I carried two tonnes of lumber around today. Must be getting old."

"Really?" Sid protested weakly, checking his own watch. "It's still pretty early –?"

Dean gave him a patient smile and shook his head. "See you Friday."

Walking out of the bar to the truck, he had a feeling that maybe Sid didn't have any other friends. With an inward shrug, he acknowledged he was in the same boat. The men he worked with were from all over, most with families and established routines in their lives. Mitch was okay for an occasional beer. And the sticking point was always going to be conversation.

His gaze moved automatically along the street, noting the shadows, the darkness of the recessed doorways, the lines of sight both ways along the road. It was a habit he didn't notice, that involuntary checking of the immediate surroundings. Stepping off the kerb next to the pickup, he pulled open the door, careful not to crack the corner into the vehicle next to him when he heard the scrape of a boot on the asphalt behind him, and spun around, reflex taking over.

The man standing behind him felt his arm swept up and back as he was swung around on the fulcrum of his own shoulder. Dean plucked the handgun from his paralysed fingers, and tucked it into his jacket pocket, forcing the man's forearm further up his back, and leaning close to him.

"Okay, what do you want?" he asked coldly, annoyed with himself for leaving the knife and flask of holy water on the passenger side of the truck.

The man he held wriggled futilely and stammered, "Uh … n-n-nothing … it was a m-m-mistake, I'm sorry!"

For a moment he felt disoriented, the clash of ordinary life and the instinctive response to the guy he held cancelling each other out in some weird way. He realised that the man was just a man and the obvious motivation belatedly occurred to him.

"You were going to mug me?" Dean asked, surprised and suddenly a little amused by the banality of it.

"Uh … no, no, sir, nothing like that," the would-be mugger said quickly, rolling his eyes.

"Huh, yeah. Okay."

Forcing him backward between the truck and the vehicle next to it, he heaved the guy around and frog-marched him across the street. He wasn't sure what to do with the asshole, he realised as they reached kerb. Just a person. Just a petty criminal. Weren't there supposed to be cops around to deal with crap like this?

"Better get out of here before I change my mind, and pick another territory. This one's covered, you got that?" he growled, shoving the man forward, watching him stumble and fall to one knee as he tried to run before he'd gotten his feet under him.

Looking around, he shook his head, and crossed the street back to the truck, swinging the door open and climbing in. Behind the wheel, he stared out through the windshield for a long moment, the key in the ignition, his fingers on it, fighting back the longing he had to tell someone of the dude's monumental stupidity. He wanted to tell Sam, see his brother's brow wrinkle up in a look of incredulity, followed by amusement as he imagined it. He wanted to tell Bobby, hear the short bark of laughter from the old man. There was no one to tell.

He pulled the gun he'd confiscated from his pocket and looked at it. A cheap 9mm, more likely to jam than to fire straight. Clearing the chamber and taking out the magazine, he tossed the gun onto the bench seat. He could lock it in the Impala when he got home. Get a few bucks for it later on. Starting the engine, he checked the road and pulled out, missing, as he always did, the throaty rumble of the black car that remained sleeping, silenced and still in the garage.

* * *

><p>The house was lit up as he pulled into his driveway and parked the truck in front of the garage. Taking the automatic with him, he opened the garage and walked to the rear of the car parked inside, lifting the tarp up to open the trunk.<p>

As he lifted the false bottom, and saw the munitions that near filled the space beneath, he felt another sigh pass through him. Every piece had been cleaned and wrapped in cloth, the oil staining through, protecting the weapons from dust and moisture. Behind and around them, bags of herbs, of crushed rock and bone and salt and iron filings, fine, gold wire and jars of various types of goop were neatly arranged and had been refilled, as much as he'd been able to get hold of, in any case. He was still thinking about getting a lockup unit, somewhere and moving it all there to be stored indefinitely. He hadn't done anything other than think about it, though.

He put the automatic in with the rest, and closed the trunk, pulling the tarp back over her neatly. Leaning against her flank, rubbing his fingers over his forehead, to ease the tension he could feel, he wondered if this was going to be all there was. The job. A drink with his neighbour every Friday night. The occasional petty crim to spice up his day? He wasn't a superhero, didn't feel the need to get out there and save the fucking world twenty times a week, but … he could feel something slipping away from him. Something leaking out. Something that'd been important.

_You wanted a normal life_, he thought. _You wanted to be free of the responsibilities for saving people, wanted to be done with the burdens of the way things hadn't worked out, people dying_. He'd felt unbelievably tired, in the last few months leading up to their confrontation with Lucifer. Tired and worn out, he'd thought then. Now, he just felt … what? … Not there? Not here? He shook his head, pushing off the side of the car and walking out, closing the door and checking that the truck was locked up, walking across to the front door.

The key made little noise as it turned and released the lock, but Ben was waiting for him in the hallway, greeting him with a wide grin.

"Hey, thought you were never coming home," he said.

Dean smiled back at him, and reached for the ever-present lie. "Yeah, I had to work late and everything took that bit longer. Must be nearly bedtime, kiddo?"

"Mom said I could stay up until you got home. I wanted to remind you that the game's on tomorrow; you can still come, can't you?"

He grimaced inwardly. He'd forgotten about it completely. He nodded. "Sure, uh, yeah. Wouldn't miss it."

"Okay, 'night, Dean." Ben turned and pounded up the stairs, calling goodnight to his mother from the doorway of his bedroom at the top of his voice.

Pulling off his jacket and hanging it over the coat stand in the hallway, he walked to the kitchen and poured himself a whiskey. He carried it into the living room, picking up the remote and flipping through the channels, looking for news channels. He didn't want to think about anything. Not the endless search for information. Not his responsibilities to the woman and boy he was with. Not the events of the day, the past few days. He found a local late night news channel and dropped into the armchair, forcing himself to watch. The news was not good. It was never good, but at least in the last three months it hadn't been spectacularly bad. That, he decided, tossing back the rest of his drink, was reassuring.

The nightly routine was already set and he followed it without having to think about it. Turning for the stairs, he wondered briefly how long it would take before he started to get a more lax on that routine. A year? Five? He tried to shake off the thought, opening Ben's door and looking around the peaceful room. He'd wanted a family, his back together, more than anything, but in the last couple of years, he'd caught himself thinking, occasionally, about a family of his own. He hadn't really thought of what it would be like. He hadn't been considering taking on a ready-made family, back then.

Closing the door silently, he backed from the room and walked down to the bedroom.

* * *

><p>Lisa sat in bed, reading, the room lit by the single bedside lamp. She glanced up as Dean came in, and smiled at him.<p>

"Hey, how was your day?"

Hesitating for a moment, he found himself tempted to tell her all about it … the job, the snarkiness of the building inspector, the crappy material the old project manager had purchased, probably for a kickback before he'd been fired, the tedium of having a drink with Sid, the mugging attempt – his only bright spot of humour in the day. He resisted the temptation and smiled at her instead, crossing the room to check that the radiator was warm and working.

"Pretty average. Sid wanted to have a game of pool tonight," he told her, walking back to the bed.

"You didn't clean him out, did you?" she asked.

"No, I even let him win." He pulled off his boots and ran his fingers over the bottle, gun and bag of salt that lived under his side of the bed. "I think it might be a new thing for him, though. He seemed pretty keen."

Stripping, he dropped his clothes on the floor, and pulled back the covers, lying down and thumping the pillow behind his head.

"You'll live." She put her book down on the nightstand, and wriggled across the space to him, slipping her arm over his chest and walking her fingers lightly downwards. "Feel like fooling around?"

He put his arm around her, his eyes closing very briefly. "Yeah."

It wasn't that it wasn't good, he thought, rolling onto his side as she slid her arms around his neck, snuggling closer to him and lifting her head to kiss him.

Or that they were in a rut, or that it was perfunctory. She had a beautiful body, lithe and strong and still pretty bendy, truth be told. She was inventive and thoughtful, and he was always aroused. The sex between them was satisfying. He was careful to make sure of that.

He reached for the nightstand drawer, fingers curling around the foil wrapped condoms in it, and pulled one out. She was on a contraceptive pill, she'd told him, had been for years. He wasn't sure why he kept using the rubbers, if it was habit, or something else, something that thought that safe was better than sorry. Rolling it down as she licked and kissed his neck, he knew she wondered about it as well, telling him more than once that she preferred him without them. He'd made some noncommittal remark, trying to shrug it off.

He liked to take his time, but invariably, she was more impatient, her hands sliding over him, looking for the places that would amp him up, build his arousal to the same level as hers. He'd resisted those demands, for a while, the two of them in a tacit struggle for control, something he'd found briefly exciting. Now, he let her control the pace, giving her what she wanted when she wanted it.

The hell was wrong with him, he thought, feeling her rapid pants against his throat, her fingers start to tighten on his shoulders, digging in as she arched up beneath him. With the exception of that first time – their first time together since he'd gotten here – he'd had no trouble controlling himself, knowing how to make it last, how to make her shiver and ripple around him, knowing he could go as long as it needed. That wasn't a surprise. It'd been the case for most of his adult life. But here, it felt … wrong. There was something lacking, something vital, something wild, something he couldn't – wouldn't – look at.

* * *

><p>After, she curled into his side as he rolled onto his back. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady and regular, but he was awake. The nightmares were becoming less frequent now, although when they did come to him, they were agonisingly vivid, and their after-shocks lasted longer. His past had given his subconscious a vast well of material to work with.<p>

He listened to Lisa's soft breathing beside him, gradually slowing, becoming deeper and steady. He'd been here six months almost, he thought. Six months with nothing to show for it bar an ever-increasing tolerance for whiskey and probably a good case of liver damage.

Lisa rolled away and he waited a moment, then rolled onto his side, one arm sliding under his pillow and dragging it down. He couldn't live in this limbo, he knew. Couldn't live with a foot in two worlds. He was going to have a make a decision about what the hell he was doing, was going to do and then stick to it, because the way things were now, it wasn't fair on any of them.

The dinner with her family returned to him and he drew in a deeper breath, his imagination projecting his future effortlessly along that line. Christmas and New Year's, he thought, Valentine's Day and the Fourth and parent-teacher meetings, block parties, summer barbecues, going to the movies, maybe taking Ben camping or fishing in his vacation time, taking a turn coaching the local baseball team, or football, remembering to get flowers for Lisa on her birthday or find a restaurant to take her out for some swanky dinner, figuring out how to talk to people, maybe buying a house instead of renting … and … and that was normal life, wasn't it? That was what he wanted. Wasn't it?

The memories were false, planted in a dream that had been a secret wish, hidden inside. He remembered the graveyard and the tombstone, and standing there, lost and wanting something he needed.

_It's like my old life is – is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn't want me to be happy. 'Course I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball but ... _So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people's lives, no contest._ Right? But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?_

He'd wanted to stay there, had wanted it so bad he'd had to use every bit of will and self-discipline he'd grown up with to make himself go.

It hadn't been until later, a lot later, that he'd gotten that straight in his head, and deeper, in his heart.


	7. Chapter 7 December 2010

**Chapter 7 December 2010**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Indianapolis, Indiana<strong>_

The mall was huge. Dean stood under the atrium, looking up at floor after floor, rising like tiers in a wedding cake. But in spite of the capacity of the place, it was packed. This last weekend before Christmas had brought out every man, woman and child in the state, he thought, looking around disbelievingly. Where the hell did they all hide for the rest of the year?

It hadn't yet snowed, but a mixture of sleet, rain and icy winds had made the drive treacherous. He thought of the journey home, after God-knows-how-many-hours shopping, and swallowed. There were times when he was convinced that the hunting life had been safer. Just finding an empty space in the parking lot had been a challenge.

"I think we'd better split up," Lisa decided, looking around the jammed concourse. "We can move faster, and it'll be easier to be … discreet," she added pointedly, looking at Dean over Ben's head.

"Yeah, uh, okay. Ben, you and me'll grab what we need first," Dean agreed, his gaze zeroing in on a giant, inflatable elf, suspended halfway up the towering glass and steel void above them. Thing was visible from almost everywhere. He nodded to it, looking back at Lisa. "We'll meet you under that in, uh, two hours?"

"Right. See you then." Lisa turned and disappeared into the crowd, lost in the seething mass in seconds.

Dean looked down at Ben. "You know what you want to get?"

Ben nodded. "I need a CD store."

Dean looked around helplessly. There could be a hundred of them in here, and they'd never see them. "Know where the directory is?"

Ben grinned. "Yeah, follow me."

Dean kept close to Ben as the boy eeled his way through the ever-increasing throng of people. After a couple of hundred yards, he felt as if he was in one of those nightmares where it's impossible move faster than a slow walk, as if the atmosphere has thickened to the consistency of honey. Twice he almost lost sight of Ben's head, and had to shove through the press of the crowd around him to catch up.

"Ben! Not so fast," he called out, wondering if Ben could even hear him over the too-loud, too-cheery Christmas muzak and the humming drone of the crowd's collective voice that filled the centre of the mall with a thick wall of white noise. But Ben slowed and Dean caught a glimpse of his face as he turned to check that Dean was still following him. They reached the brightly-lit interactive store directory together.

"Okay." Dean scanned the board, his eyes racing over the list of stores in the complex, brows drawing together in increasing frustration. How many were there, anyway?

"There it is." Ben pointed vaguely toward the middle of the listings. "Level Three. Just near the elevators."

"Glad you could find it," Dean growled. The bottom of the directory had proudly proclaimed more than three hundred stores in the place and he was damned if he'd been able to see anything with a name that could be associated with music. He swung around as Ben darted back into the crowd.

"Ben! Goddammit – hold up, wait a minute." Dean plunged through after him, earning several affronted looks from the people he'd knocked aside as he caught the boy by the arm. "You might know where you're going, but I don't. We're not in a rush, okay? Stay close."

It took another interminable length of time to weave and wind their way to the bank of five elevators. Looking at the crushed-together groups in the clear glass boxes, he wondered if the place was old-fashioned enough to have stairs, and if so, where the hell they might be. The thought was wiped as one of the glass boxes opened its doors, disgorging the people in it and Ben darted in, turning to look at Dean as he was forced to squeeze into the tiny space two matronly women had left between themselves for him. Surrounded by the thick scents of cheap perfume, deodorant and hairspray, he decided that no matter how long it took to find them, they were gonna use the stairs to get back down. The ladies got out on the second level and he drew in a deep breath as they left, turning his head to see Ben's slight grin.

* * *

><p>On the third level, the crowds weren't as thick, and they got out without being squashed into more personal contact than Dean could handle and without having to trample anyone to exit the lift. Dean followed Ben around the curve of the mezzanine balcony, expelling the last of the cosmetic odours from his lungs. Years of a life spent mostly in the company of his father and brother, in isolated wilderness and small rural towns, had given him a lifelong aversion to too many people, gathered too close together. He paused to glance over the railing, looking down at the shoulder-to-shoulder, pushing, heaving crowds below. <em>How is this fun for anyone, <em>he wondered?

When he looked up, Ben had vanished.

_Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Not on his watch. NO!_

He looked around, moving fast away from the railing. Scanning the curving walkway carefully, he started to move along the shop fronts, glancing into each one before moving on to the next. The music store was there, but he couldn't see Ben in it. He was already turning to go in for a better look, when the back of his neck prickled sharply and he looked along the walkway instead. Two hundred yards up, the crowds parted momentarily and he saw Ben, walking away from him, his arm raised and tightly held by a large man in a dark business suit, hustling them briskly along the walkway.

"Hey!" Dean broke into a run, dodging shoppers as he increased his speed. "HEY!"

The man turned to look over his shoulder, giving Dean a fast glimpse of a rounded, sweaty face, wire-rimmed glasses and receding hairline, and began to walk faster, dragging Ben along beside him. Ben looked around as well, his face white, his mouth slightly open.

They turned into a hall off the walkway, the sign next to it advising it led to bathrooms and an exit, and Dean sped up as the guy pushed Ben ahead of him, both disappearing from his view.

He reached the corner, accelerated hard as he turned into the corridor. At the end, the Exit sign was lit up over a fire door and he yelled out again when the guy pulled it open, getting his bulk through and pulling at Ben who was now tugging back to get free.

_Sonofabitch._

Dean put in a final long-reaching spurt and caught Ben's wrist as he was dragged through the slow-closing exit door. The edge of the door caught Dean's shoulder, and he elbowed it back, sending it crashing into the wall, the concrete stairwell echoing with the bang.

"The hell you think you're doing?" he demanded as the guy dropped his hold on Ben and backed away.

Pushing the boy behind him, Dean closed the distance to the man, a dozen possible scenarios racing through his mind, each one worse than the one before, and he reached for the guy's coat, fists bunching in the lapels, and the guy cowering back against the wall as Dean lifted him slightly from the floor. Wide, light-brown eyes were magnified by the thick lenses over them, his face flushed and greasy with perspiration and his breath huffed in unpleasant squirts against Dean's throat.

"Hey! Buddy! I'm talking to you!" Dean said, aware the guy was seconds away from either pissing his pants or having a heart attack. He shoved him back against the wall.

"Urgh!"

Ben looked up at Dean. "He said I stole something, that he was taking me to the police."

Dean looked at the man flatly, tightening his grip. "Did he?"

Eyes bulging, the guy's mouth opened and closed, no sound coming out as he shook his head weakly.

"Ben, go wait by the door, okay?"

He didn't look around at the boy to see if he'd gone; his fists crushed the cloth of the man's coat, half-lifting, half-pushing him along the wall to the edge of the first flight of steps leading down.

"N-n-no, w-w-w-wait." The man suddenly found his voice at the brink of the stairs. "You don't understand, it's n-n-not what you think!"

He looked down at Dean's hands, gesturing feebly to his jacket pocket. "In there, you'll see. I thought the kid was with these other kids … they've been shoplifting all year … in the pocket, please, in the pocket."

Dean studied him for a long moment, then released one of the lapels and reached into the pocket the man indicated. His fingers felt the crisp edges and he drew out a folded sheet of paper. Opening it, he looked at the printout of a still frame from a security camera. Four kids had been captured on the printout, one with a game clearly in his hand, as it disappeared under his jacket. They looked a bit older than Ben.

"These kids?" He looked back at the man. "You thought _this_ boy was one of these kids?"

"Yes, yes!" The man's eyes had filled with tears, trembling on the edge of his lower lids as he looked up at Dean.

"I've told the police, I've told security. There's nothing they could do …" He looked down at the paper. "When I saw your boy … I thought if I could get him to the police, they would find the others. It was a mistake – just an honest mistake, I swear it!"

Dean looked more closely at the grainy still shot. There was a boy, around Ben's height and weight, with the other kids. A close look showed the kid to be a bit older, but he could see how such a mistake could be made. He drew in a breath, his gaze rising.

"Get out your wallet."

The man gulped. "You're going to rob me?"

He felt a spurt of annoyance at the assumption. "No, I want to see some ID. I want to make sure you're not conning me," he explained with exaggerated patience.

"Oh." The man pulled out his wallet from his jacket breast pocket. "Here. I own Just Games, in the mall, on this level."

Dean flipped the wallet open and looked at the man's driver's licence. James Murray, of Greenfield. In the slot below, there were a dozen business cards for Just Games, proprietor James Murray. He handed James Murray his wallet back and released his grip on the man's coat, stepping back.

"Listen, uh, the next time, if you see a parent running after you, just stop, and explain," he suggested sourly. "Because, the next time, you might get someone less even-tempered than me."

Murray nodded quickly, giving Dean a wide berth as he passed him, squeezing through the fire door as soon as the opening was wide enough. The sound of his footsteps rapidly faded as he ran back up the hall. Dean turned to look at Ben.

"Don't go on ahead again, alright Ben? Stay close, stay where you can see me – and I can see you." His mouth twisted. "It's a nuthouse in there and your mom would kill me if I lost you, okay?"

* * *

><p>Ben nodded seriously. He'd never seen Dean as mad as he'd been; holding the man's coat in both hands. Dean'd been ready to throw the guy down the concrete stairs, he was sure of that. That hadn't been a bluff, not the cold, dark expression on his face, or the way he'd manhandled the man to edge.<p>

They walked back through the fire doors, and onto the walkway, and Ben stayed close.

* * *

><p>Dean could feel the trickle of sweat, running down his back. The adrenalin was dispersing, leaving fatigue and the faint beginnings of a headache behind. He walked next to Ben, looking down frequently, checking he was there.<p>

He'd faced monsters and demons, vengeful ghosts and elemental spirits, the powers of Heaven and Hell, but from the moment he'd realised Ben wasn't there, this encounter had skyrocketed up his list of worst moments in a heartbeat.

He shook his head. A part of it, he knew, was that Ben was under his protection, and his responsibility. A part was the strange déjà vu feeling that he was once again taking care of his little brother. But the major part had come from his feelings for the boy, from his affection, and the need in himself to make sure that Ben had a good childhood, a safe childhood.

What the hell was he supposed to get for Lisa, he wondered, standing on the fifth level and looking at the stores that seemed focussed on women's needs.

"Ben, what are you getting for your mom?" he asked the boy. Ben shrugged.

"She likes that, uh, perfume, you know, with the red top," he said, gesturing toward a bunch of storefronts that seemed to specialise in accessories. "It's really expensive, so she doesn't get it for herself."

"Huh."

He started to walk slowly past the stores, looking at the window displays. The lingerie store held his attention for a few minutes, Ben glancing at the lace and silk and satin items disinterestedly for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"You think she'd like any of this stuff?" he asked, glancing at him.

"I dunno," Ben said. "Ron used to get her a lot of that stuff, for her birthday and Christmas and stuff. One year, she told me it was more for him than for her."

His eyes narrowing slightly, he saw that Ben hadn't really gotten that and he turned away from the shop, walking fast to the next one. Last thing he wanted was to be compared to a guy named Ron. Ron who thought that sexy lingerie was what every woman wanted for Christmas. She was right. It wasn't as much for her as it was for him.

"Hey," Ben said, stopping in front of another store, this one with a window filled with hats and scarves and handbags. "What about something like that?"

Dean followed his gaze. The mannequin was wearing a short winter coat in white wool, and chocolate brown skin-tight pants, with some kind of matching set of scarf and gloves, both in an interesting mixed weave of deep greens, purples and reds. It looked nice, he thought, wondering if his judgement in these things was any use. He walked into the store and looked around.

"Hi, I'm Sherry, can I help you today, sir?"

He looked down at the girl who'd appeared beside him in bemusement. Early twenties, he thought, her fashion-conscious short skirt and low-cut blouse rendered unfashionable by the elf hat she had perched on her head.

"Uh, yeah, that, um, scarf and gloves set –" he said, turning to wave a hand at the display window. "– in the, uh, window."

"Oh, sure," she said, stepping around him to a rack and lifting a packaged version of them from the hook. "They're really popular. The colours match nearly everything and the wool's pure alpaca."

"Huh," he said. "Yeah, okay, I'll, uh, take one of those."

"What size?"

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Small, medium or large?"

"Uh … medium, I guess," he said, brows drawing together. He couldn't remember much about Lisa's hands, other than they were a lot smaller than his.

"Great!" She put the set she'd been holding back and took another one from the rack. "That'll be twenty-nine ninety-five plus tax. Cash or charge?"

"Cash."

Ringing up the sale, the girl put the set into a bag and handed back his change. "Happy Christmas!"

"Uh, yeah, thanks."

He found Ben standing by the door, and looked down at him. "You think that's enough?"

Looking down at the small bag, Ben shook his head. "Better get at least one other thing," he said. "Can we find the perfume place now?"

"Right."

It wasn't exactly how he'd thought it would be, he realised. Not that he'd been shopping for Christmas gifts for anyone for a while. And the last ones he'd deliberately bought had been a couple of skin mags and shaving cream for his brother, gotten at the last minute from a gas station.

He could still remember the last Christmas in Lawrence. Or, he thought he could, not sure now how much of that memory had been real, and how much had been his adult ideas of Christmas filling in the gaps.

The tree had almost reached the ceiling, covered in delicate glass balls and strings of coloured crystal beads, tinsel and painted pine cones, candy canes and candles. His father had put the star on the top on Christmas Eve. His mother had told him it'd been in their family for a long time, that her father had put it on their Christmas trees when she'd been growing up. A confection of glass and silver wire, it'd seemed to draw the light to it, capturing and holding it somehow.

He shook off the memory. Sam hadn't been born yet and nothing bad had happened and how fucking likely he was remembering that time accurately anyway?

"So, uh, Ben," he said, dragging his attention back to the present. "What else you think your mom wants?"

* * *

><p>An hour later, Dean and Ben rode the escalator down to the ground floor, manoeuvring through the thick crowds toward the meeting place. Lisa was standing under the elf, waiting for them, surrounded by bags, boxes and more bags. She grinned at him as they walked up.<p>

"Hey, right on time." She slipped an arm around Dean, reaching up to kiss him lightly, her gaze darting curiously over the packages both were carrying. "How was it? Did you get everything?"

"Yeah, and then some," Dean said, his expression screwing up with the recent memories. "Is there anywhere in here we can get something to eat? I'm starving, and Ben is too."

"Yeah, we'll go to the food court," Lisa said, gesturing upward. Dean looked up, stifling a groan as he saw the familiar fast food banners, wreathed in tinsel to mark the season, fluttering out from the railing of the highest floor. "It'll be easier to keep going if we're not carrying this stuff around. Can you take it out to the car? We can meet you up there, get a table. Maybe."

Dean looked at the pile on the floor surrounding them and sighed. "Sure."

Lisa pointed to the top level. "Okay, see you soon."

She slipped an arm around Ben and Dean watched them head for the elevators, heads bent close together.

"Okay." He began to gather up the bags and boxes, forgetting about the flimsy plastic or string handles and grabbing whatever he could to keep a good grip on them. When he had all of them, he found he could clear a reasonably wide path through the crowd, his arms stretched out to either side and people moving away from him. He headed for the parking lot.

* * *

><p>Outside and away from the heated air and constant noise of the mall, he felt the low-grade headache receding. The sky was getting darker, thicker clouds building, pushed by a wind that seemed to be filled with ice. The forecast that morning had promised an early snowfall and it looked like it was going to be right, he thought. The lot's lighting cast wan patches over the cars, throwing gunmetal shadows between them. Loading the packages into the back of the pickup, he clipped the hard cover back over them and pulled his coat collar up.<p>

The walk back to the mall, unencumbered by either packages or the responsibility of keeping Ben safe, gave him time to think about his reactions to James Murray, game store owner.

He'd been ready to throw him down the stairs, more than one flight as well, when he'd thought that the guy was trying to abduct Ben. He hadn't felt that savage fury for a long time and, he considered carefully, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It had certainly _felt_ better to be able to deal with a threat directly, no shades of gray, just straightforward action.

Slowing a little, he wondered at that feeling of relief. The way his life was now, nothing was that straightforward, everything was a negotiation. The only things he could look at and deal with directly were the jobs he still had to finish on the house and even then the rental agency whined and bitched at the cost of the materials. His job should've been simple enough, but it wasn't, the crappy timber, fastenings and mouldings Davis had ordered fell apart or weren't straight, making everything take twice as long as it should've. He was still negotiating the relationship he'd stumbled into, on a daily basis. He couldn't find any more leads on the list of things he needed to open a gate and Katherine Macdonald had claimed that she couldn't help him with those. She'd been lying, he thought, although he couldn't work out why. He knew what a lie sounded like. And he was still waking, in the middle of the night, overheated and shaking with dreams he wouldn't've wished on his worst enemy. Sleeping hadn't gotten any better, he'd discovered. He was just getting used to getting less.

And all of that was something he just had to suck up, he thought derisively. There wasn't anything special about him, no easy road, no tequila and strippers. He'd made a choice and the shades of grey that'd come along with it were the price that had to be paid for the life he'd chosen. _Had had chosen for him_, the small voice in his head corrected.

He stopped at the glass entrance doors, brow furrowing. Was he still here because of his promise to Sam? He knew, without the slightest doubt in his mind, that if he could find a way to get started on getting his brother out of the cage, he'd leave Lisa and Ben and do it, without a backward look. What did that say about him? About his commitment to them? About his feelings for them?

A group of people came out of the mall, the glass doors opening and he walked through them, barely noticing where he was going. Leaning against the wall by the bank of elevators, he rubbed a hand over his face and stared at the ground. He cared for them. Cared about them. He liked waking up in a clean bed with the comforting warmth of a woman's soft body within reach. Liked coming home and talking to Ben, about his day, his problems, his goals and ambitions. Liked home-cooked meals and sprawling on the sofa on a Sunday evening, watching a movie, having the garage and working on the cars, teaching Ben about them, not being covered in blood and wondering if the highway patrol coming up fast behind him was gonna pull him over and check the federal databases for a Dean Winchester, criminal, murderer, grave-robber.

Was that enough? Was that enough to last a lifetime? Was it what most people had, a daily routine, a comfortable life, nothing too major to shake their belief that if they just paid their taxes and did the right thing most of the time everything would be fine?

The elevator arrived with a discreet 'ting' and he watched the crowd getting off absently as he waited for it to empty, seeing impatience and laughter and frustration and worry in the expressions of the people pushing past him. Getting on, he pushed the top button and decided that he'd enough introspection for a while. He was hungry.

* * *

><p>Dean was packing the last of the packages from their second round of shopping into the back of the truck as it started to sleet, hurriedly clipping the cover back in place and hoping like hell it wouldn't spring a leak on the drive home.<p>

"Got enough room, Ben?" he asked, sliding into the driver's seat. Ben sat in the middle, between them.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"Okay." He started the engine, flicking on the headlights and twisting around to see if any suicidal shoppers were standing right behind them. "If I never come back here, it'll be too soon."

"Oh, c'mon, it wasn't that bad. This is what a normal life is like, Dean," Lisa reminded him, smiling. "I kind of liked it, it was fun."

He glanced over at her, his mouth curling up. "Okay, you can do it next year."

Spinning the wheel and reversing smoothly out of the space, he let out a long, noisy exhale as the pickup crawled along to join the long, long line of vehicles exiting the lot.

* * *

><p>Turning to the window, Lisa smiled. Next year, she thought. It sounded like a commitment.<p>

The last four weeks had been interesting. There had been a while, after his return from Virginia, when she'd had the feeling he'd been unhappy with them, restless and distant, their lovemaking sometimes – not always, of course – but sometimes feeling a little bit … forced, she allowed. Then, without warning or a discussion, Dean had framed a couple of walls around his small corner of the basement, installing a door and putting up drywall, sealing and painting them. He'd put a lock on the door and then closed it, and he hadn't been back down there, that she knew of, since. She'd asked about it, carefully, and he'd shrugged and told her he couldn't find what he needed. He didn't want Ben looking at those books and had thought that since they'd settled into the house pretty well, he'd just leave it for awhile.

That admission had made her heart leap, and when he'd kept to it, spending the evenings with her and Ben, not even on the computer for long periods, she'd begun to think that he might be finally letting go of his old life.

She still wasn't sure what it was about him that drew her so strongly. The sex was – and had always been – the most sensual she'd experienced, surprising in a man who was often pragmatic and hard in public view, but took his time and revelled in the pleasure of physical touch in private. But that wasn't all it was. In the last few months, she'd seen him at every point of the emotional spectrum, from black depression to joking around, looking relaxed and at ease with himself. She could be doing something and would feel him looking at her, and when she turned around, his expression would be … what, she wondered? Caring? Tender, maybe. As if he had found happiness in their home, this life they were making together. She'd never been able to really decipher those looks, and hadn't wanted to ask him about it, too conscious of the clichéd female curiosity and most asked question of all time – _what are you thinking – right now?_

He hadn't said anything about the future at all, but she wasn't expecting that. Didn't, really, even want it right now, she told herself. Just to get to know each other, to live in the moment for a while longer, to enjoy each other. That was all she thought she wanted. Those other things, future things, commitment and planning and decisions, those could wait. They would come when they were both ready.

Leaning back against the seat, she thought about what Christmas as a family, the three of them together on Christmas morning, might be like. Different, for sure. The last few years, she'd usually gone overboard in buying gifts for Ben, feeling the slight loneliness of just the two of them. This year, she'd bought one big present, and several smaller ones, knowing that Dean would be there to help him put it together and that too would be another memory shared, another foundation laid.

* * *

><p>Finally clearing the city's limits and in less traffic as the conditions worsened, Dean thought of the tree they'd put up last weekend. It had taken all his strength to manhandle and wrestle the thing into the living room, but it was impressive, barely room between the top and the ceiling for the sparkling star Lisa had produced when they'd finished with the rest of the decorations, baubles and little figurines, tinsel and candy canes.<p>

It filled the room with the fresh, biting scent of pine, providing a much-needed respite from the smells of baking that had filled the house ever since. He wasn't sure what Lisa had been baking, but there'd been a lot of it and he'd wondered how the hell she thought the three of them would eat all of whatever it was.

Sam would have loved it, he thought. _Well, when he'd been a kid, anyway_, he amended. Too many years of Christmases without trees, without ceremony or gifts had soured the day for his brother. He suddenly realised he'd never asked Sam about his Christmases with Jessica, not wanting to raise the subject the first year they'd been on the road, and then not really thinking about it.

_Too late now_.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Cicero, Indiana<strong>_

The forecast snow had turned into an icy rain which was settling in by the time they pulled into the driveway. Pulling into the other side of the garage, Dean stopped the pickup next to the house door and got out, closing the garage door and hitting the lights. He unclipped the hard cover and lifted it, nodding as Lisa hustled Ben into the house and told him she'd thaw out a couple of pizzas for dinner.

Unloading the bags and boxes from the tray, trying to remember who'd bought which and dumping Ben's purchases in his room, he took the rest to the main bedroom. Lisa could figure out most of them, he thought. He'd left her gifts in the tray and he could put them in the Impala until he got time to wrap them.

The frozen pizza was tasteless but hot and he picked up the dishes as Lisa cleared the leftovers, putting them in the sink and running hot water in automatically. Most of their routines were as settled as his evening prowl around the house, and he didn't think about it anymore, just followed Lisa's leads on what she preferred to do and what she wanted him to do. Taking out the full trash bag, he dumped it into the can, shivering as the wind came around the corner of the house and found a way through his thick shirt and down his neck. It would be icy in the morning if it got any colder, he thought vaguely. He'd start late tomorrow, drive them to school and the studio, if it was.

Coming back into the house, he looked at the fireplace. It'd been a long, tiring day and he didn't feel much like prolonging it.

"Ben, time for bed. Still a school day tomorrow," Lisa said from the kitchen, and Ben nodded.

"'Night –" Dean yawned half-way through. "– Ben".

"'Night, Dean." Ben grinned, as he headed up the stairs.

"Exhausted by a bit of shopping, Dean?" Lisa teased him, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. He looked at her and yawned again.

"That wasn't a bit of shopping, that was a battlefield. Only the fittest survived," he retorted. "You staying up?"

"No, I'm going to have a hot shower and crawl into bed." She turned to look around the kitchen. "At least it's all done now. Just the wrapping."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Go ahead, I'll lock up."

He watched her walk up the stairs, yawning again and turned away to check the doors and windows and the traps that guarded them. Everything was in place, undisturbed. Had that other world really forgotten all about him, he wondered as he turned off the lights and walked slowly up the stairs, or was this an illusion, this comfortable house in the middle of a comfortable neighbourhood, a feeling of safety and as if nothing would ever change?

* * *

><p><em><strong>Five days later.<strong>_

Lisa turned off all the lights except a lamp by the sofa and sat down with a soft sigh. Beside her, Dean leaned back, savouring the quiet and the warmth, his gaze moving from the fire crackling on the hearth to the tree, glowing against the pale walls, with colours that seemed to only be this vivid and rich at this time of year.

They'd finished wrapping and the presents, bright with foil and twisting ribbon, sat in an enticing pile under the tree. Outside, the first big, fluffy flakes had begun to fall, drifting to the ground, already coating the bare branches and fence, promising a white mantle over the ground by morning.

_Christmas Eve. As it was supposed to be_, Dean thought. This was more like what he'd imagined a normal life to be. He looked down at Lisa as she moved closer to lean against him. From the stereo, a CD began to play, muted and in the background, a mix of carols and Bing Crosby, singing about snow and sleighs and the joys of the season.

Lisa tucked one leg under her and looked up at him.

"So … Ben told me that you nearly threw a guy down the fire stairs at the mall?"

Dean leaned back a little. "Uh …"

"He said the guy grabbed him because he thought he was with a bunch of kids robbing his store."

"Yeah, that's what he said. I told him not to run, next time he's chased by a … uh, concerned adult." He looked at her, trying to read her expression. The last time he'd advocated violence as a solution, she'd been hopping mad at him. "It, uh, didn't look good."

Lisa smiled. "Ben also told me that you're the best father ever."

"Huh." Glancing back at the fire, he wasn't sure what to make of that. "I – well – it was just a –"

"You made a big impression on him, Dean."

"You mad?" he asked.

"No. Not mad," she said. "I – you know, um, thank you."

He shrugged a little uncomfortably. "Uh, yeah, well, you know how kids like that action stuff."

Lisa leaned closer and put her hand up to the side of his face, turning him back to her.

"Thank you," she repeated firmly and kissed him.

Dean slid his arms around her, and pulled her closer, looking into her eyes. "You really think I'd've just turned up to meet you without him?"

She smiled. "No. It's just good to know that he's safe with you. That we're safe with you."

He lifted an eyebrow. "You weren't sure before?"

She shook her head. "That's one thing I've never doubted about you, Dean. But it's also nice to have it confirmed." She touched his face with her fingertips, trailing them lightly from his temple to jaw. "I don't think I've ever felt this safe, or … this happy."

He hesitated for a moment, looking into her eyes, then kissed her again, deepening the kiss until she moaned.

"Let's go to bed," he suggested softly against her lips.

* * *

><p>The nightmare came at a little past one, and he sat up, wiping the sweat from his face as he tried to push aside the images that were still flickering in his head.<p>

Easing himself out of the bed, he grabbed a clean shirt and padded to the bathroom, closing the door before he turned on the light, stripping down and feeling the cool air gooseflesh his skin instantly. He turned on the cold tap and doused his face in the water, forcing himself to breathe deeply and evenly until the images were gone and the tightness in his chest had loosened. He grabbed a towel and dried himself, pulling on the clean tee shirt and turning off the light.

On the bed, Lisa was still sleeping, he thought. He didn't want to wake her and he moved across the room silently, opening the door and slipping through, closing it behind him.

Downstairs, the living room was lit by the banked fire and the lights of the tree, a sight that was almost unbearably ordinary, and he stopped, looking around, feeling a dizzying disorientation, as if he'd walked from a nightmare into a dream of normality, neither real, both cutting through him.

_One deep, dark nothing … dead inside._

_This was real_, he told himself, walking across the room to the liquor cabinet and pouring himself a glass. He swallowed it down in a couple of gulping mouthfuls and refilled the glass, turning to walk back to the sofa.

And he hadn't felt that hole since … he shut down the thought before it could finish, dropping onto the sofa.

"You alright?"

He started as Lisa's voice came from the hall, his head snapping around, seeing her emerge from the shadows into the dim light of the room. "Uh, yeah, just – you know, the usual," he said, shaking his head as he set his glass down. "Go back to bed, Lise."

"You want to talk about it?" she asked, walking to the sofa. "Any of it?"

Looking down at his glass, he wasn't sure if he wanted to or not. "I wouldn't know where to start," he admitted finally, glancing at her as she sat down at the other end.

"A while ago, you said something I didn't understand," she said, a little tentatively.

He waited, chewing the corner of his lip. He'd probably said a lot to her that she didn't understand and most of it he couldn't help her with.

"I didn't want to ask then," she continued after a moment's silence. "But I think – I think I do now."

"What?"

"You said that no one would deal, and that you got Sam back before," she told him. "What did you mean by that?"

"Uh …" he hesitated. He remembered the moment vaguely. He'd been frustrated to hell and back and she'd tried to talk to him. He shouldn't've let out that much, but his control then had been hair-thin and he'd been too close to breaking anyway.

"That's … uh, that's kind of hard to explain," he hedged.

"Dean," Lisa said. "We're in this together, aren't we?"

Were they? He wasn't sure about that either, but he'd known for a while that he couldn't keep it all a secret. There were, maybe, some things she had to know. Things about him, if not the past.

"Yeah," he said, dragging in a breath as he turned a little on the sofa to face her. "Look, you know what me and Sam did."

She nodded, her eyes on his face. "Yeah."

"It was more than just monsters," he said carefully. "Much more, but back then we didn't really know what was going on."

He couldn't tell her all of it, he realised as he searched for a way to explain. Couldn't tell her about his mother or his father or about what had been done to his brother, all in the name of breaking the devil free. She was probably going to think he was nuts if he got into any of that and from her viewpoint, he couldn't blame her.

"We were trying to find these, uh, psychics, psychic children," he said. "And we did, found a few of them. They were, uh, involved in this kind of plan, but by the time we found them, they'd grabbed Sam."

"When was this?"

"2007," he said. "There was a fight, between them, and Sam was killed."

"What?"

"Yeah, uh, he died in my arms," Dean said, swallowing against the memory. It'd come out easier this time. "And I tried, to let him go, but I couldn't. I made a deal. And it worked."

"Wait a sec, uh, go back – you made a deal? With who?" she asked, her brow furrowing. "You mean to bring Sam back from the dead?"

He could hear the mixed emotions in her voice, see them in the expressions that chased across her face. "I know how it sounds –"

"Do you?" she asked. "You're telling me that your brother, Sam, the one I met, died. And then you somehow brought him back to life, like a – like a zombie?"

"Uh, no, not like a zombie. He was, uh, resurrected, I guess you'd call it," he said reluctantly, shrugging. "In my world, in my life, that's possible."

"Resurrected," Lisa repeated flatly. "How?"

"There're demons who can do it," he said, wincing inwardly as the words came out.

"Demons?"

"Lise, you know, this probably isn't the best time to talk about this –"

Watching her draw in a deep breath, he wondered when would ever be a good time to talk about his deal to bring his brother back from the dead. It'd been his biggest mistake, he'd thought, but he would still do it the same way again. And maybe that was something she needed to know about him.

"Probably not, but when is?" she asked him. "Demons are real?"

"Yeah."

"But when Sam died, um, this last time, you couldn't make another deal?"

"No." The word came out flat and harsh and he saw her recoil a little. "No, I couldn't."

"Why couldn't you let him go?"

Dean picked up his glass, draining it. "When it came down to it, and I – I kind of got a look at the future, my future, I couldn't see anything worth going on for."

She was silent and he risked a look at her, unable to see her expression, her head bowed. She looked up after a moment, her face sombre.

"But that's changed now?" she asked him. "Now you've got something you want to keep going for?"

Hearing the question behind the question, Dean hesitated. He had a promise, he thought. A promise and nowhere else to turn.

"Yeah, now I do."


	8. Chapter 8 January 2011

**Chapter 8 January 2011**

* * *

><p><em><strong>December 31<strong>__**st**__**, 2010**_

Dean stood beside the front door, his attention divided between glances up the stairs for any sign Lisa was ready, and down the snow-covered street for the babysitter who should've been here fifteen minutes ago. In stiff, new jeans, new shirt and new dark-brown suede coat, he felt like he was waiting for a first date. It might've been the reason he was feeling unaccountably nervous about the evening.

Turning from the glass panel beside the front door, he caught sight of the tree, still towering in the corner of the living room, lights blazing and a fresh fall of needles scattered over the cream carpet beneath it.

Christmas had been … different, he decided. Not quite the way he'd imagined, but not really a disappointment either. The tree, the gifts, the food had all been pretty much as expected. Ben'd been happy with what he'd gotten and Lisa had seemed a little surprised but pleased with the perfume and the accessories, the CD Ben had sworn was a favourite. He didn't quite know what it was he'd thought had been missing. The day had started early and had stretched out, snow falling periodically, the fire crackling in the hearth, eating too much, lazing around and watching old Christmas movies on tv … he shook his head at the remembered feeling of anticlimax that'd made him slightly restless.

"Wow! Mom, you look amazing."

He looked around, seeing Ben staring at the stairs. Turning to follow the boy's gaze, Dean watched Lisa walk slowly down them, smiling a little. He wasn't wrong, Dean thought.

She reached the bottom and gave them a little pirouette. The dress was flirty and classy, a black material that shimmered in the light, and sparkled with every movement. The skirt, flaring out as Lisa spun around, settled a couple of inches above the knee; short sleeves and wide boat neck showing off her graceful neck and arms. With her hair piled into some arrangement on the top of her head, long, dangling earrings catching the light and her legs shown off in sheer, black stockings and high, elegant heels, she looked like a million dollars, he thought.

He smiled as she came up to him. "Never saw this before."

"Special occasions only," she agreed, her answering smile wide and bright. "You'll see it more now. Is Katie here yet?"

He shook his head then turned when a peremptory knock rattled the front door.

"Only –" Dean looked at his watch. "– twenty-five minutes late."

Opening the door, he stepped back as an unidentifiable person shot inside past him, stopping at the foot of the stairs and beginning to shed the multiple layers that hid her. Katie Morrissey gradually emerged as scarves, hat and down coat were discarded on the floor.

Ben sidled over to Dean and hissed, "I don't need a baby-sitter!"

He looked down at the boy, privately agreeing but not willing to get into an argument with Lisa over it now. "Your mom's call, Ben."

Sixteen years old, blonde, pretty and talkative, Katie was the kind of high school cheerleader he wouldn't have minded looking after him and Sam when they'd been kids, but he'd never gotten that lucky.

"It's freezing out there," she said to the room at large as her mouth became visible again. "Geez, Ms Braeden, you look fantastic!"

"Thanks, Katie." Lisa looked around the rooms distractedly. "Now, we're just up the street at the Chamberlains. I'm not sure when we'll be back, but it won't be any later than one, no matter what. Is that okay with your parents?"

Katie nodded, dropping her gloves onto the pile of clothes. "Yep, I told them it would be late – it is New Year's Eve after all."

"Okay, uh, there's plenty of food in the fridge, and Ben can watch TV until eleven tonight, but –" Lisa turned to her son. "– then it's bedtime, and no arguments with Katie, alright?"

Ben nodded, dropping his gaze as if the thought of arguing with a babysitter was beneath him. Watching him, Dean hid his grin.

"Okay, then … I think that's everything." She lifted her coat from the rack. "Have a good night, and we'll see you later."

Dean took the coat from her and held it up for her, shrugging slightly at her appreciative smile. He hadn't had a lot of practice at this stuff, but it wasn't like he didn't know about it.

"Dean, you going to ask Mom to dance tonight?" Ben asked suddenly. The corner of Dean's mouth lifted. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been forced into dancing with someone. It wasn't a prerequisite for most of his encounters with the opposite sex.

"You think I should?" he asked Ben, sliding a sideways glance at Lisa.

Ben nodded. "Mom's hoping you will," he added, oblivious to his mother's reaction, colour flooding her cheeks, or the gasp from Katie as she reached over and grabbed his arm.

"Ben, we should – uh – go – go – uh, go look in the fridge," she said, dragging him to the kitchen. "And, uh, show me what you got for Christmas!"

Dean looked at Lisa, smirking as he noticed her cheeks. "Are you blushing?"

"No." She lifted her chin and gave him a steady look. "Just hot in here with my coat on."

"Yeah." He grinned as Lisa turned away from him and wound her scarf around her neck, picking up the beribboned bottle of champagne from the table by the door. "Right."

"I'm not, uh, much of a dancer," he said, opening the door and turning back to look at her.

Her mouth twitched up at one side. "Guess we'll have to see about that."

* * *

><p>The street was covered in snow, icicles hanging from the eaves of the houses, most of which were still covered in fairy lights. Casting pools of pale gold light along the street, the streetlights added to the multi-coloured glow that lit up the blanketed scene. It was postcard-pretty and a little strange, he thought, to see everything so quiet on this night. In the past, he and Sam had usually found a bar for New Year's, tried to be in a city when they could. Not so much in the last couple of years, he remembered with an inward grimace, but before that.<p>

Lisa pulled her scarf higher around her ears, pulling on her gloves as Dean closed the front door behind them.

"Where is it?" he asked, looking suspiciously at the steps for signs of ice. He stepped past her, then turned and held out his hand, supporting her down the steps and onto the pavement.

"Just four doors up." Lisa pointed to the right. "The Chamberlains."

She tucked her arm through his, and they walked down to the road, turning right. The night air was frigid, but the wind had died earlier. In the morning, if the stillness held, the snow would be frozen and more icicles would hang from every surface.

"Remind me who they are again?" Dean felt the bottle he held getting colder by the minute, even through his gloves. His stomach was fluttering a little. This was an aspect of normality he hadn't really considered, this dealing with the social events that the neighbours seem to revel in. A fragment of memory hit him; they'd been in the car, his brother resolutely determined, him trying to find a way around that determination.

_Why don't we swing by the roadhouse instead? I mean, we haven't heard anything on the demon lately. We should be hunting that sonofabitch down … _That's a good idea, you should, _Sam had said_. Just drop me off, I'll hitch a ride, and I'll meet you there tomorrow _… Right. Stuck ... stuck with those people, making awkward small talk until you show up? No thanks._

His brother had wanted to see their mother's grave, something he hadn't wanted - hadn't been able to handle, he admitted to himself. But the alternative, going to the roadhouse and hanging out, had seemed worse. He hadn't known Ellen or Ash or Jo well then, hadn't felt comfortable in the place, nothing to do but sit around and talk about nothing because he couldn't talk about the big things, the things that had been scaring the crap out of him.

"Uh … Alice and David, they have a little girl a few years younger than Ben. We met them at Sid's block party, remember? They moved here about three years ago, she said. He's an engineer, I think. She teaches pre-school."

"Uh huh." Dean felt his foot start to slide out as he found a patch of ice. He tensed his leg muscle and carefully lifted his foot off the ice. "Icy here."

"You start to go, then let me go; if I fall in this dress, I'll never get up," Lisa warned him.

He grinned and kept a careful watch on the pavement in front of them.

The Chamberlain's house was easy to find. Every room was lit up and music leaked through to the street, a medley from the fifties to the eighties. Dean listened as they turned in the gate and quickly came to the conclusion that his own favourites from those decades were not likely to be included on the play list. He let out a resigned exhale and followed Lisa up the path.

They were greeted at the door by a pretty brunette, her hair cut short and sleek, bangs shadowing her eyes. She was wearing a mid-thigh dress, some shining silvery material with a fringe along the hem that stopped above the knee. In one hand, a large and very pink cocktail threatened to spill from the bulbous glass containing it as she waved it around.

"Hi! Welcome! It's … um … Lisa, isn't it? So glad you could make it." She turned to smile at Dean, leaning forward a little on four-inch heels. "This is your … boyfriend? I'm sorry, I forgot your name."

Lisa turned and looked at Dean, a corner of her mouth dimpling. "Uh, yeah … this is Dean."

Dean smiled uncomfortably, recoiling a little internally at the term. There wasn't anything better between high school and happily-ever-after, he wondered?

"Yeah, uh, you must be Alice. Something for midnight." He handed her the bottle and she peered at it a moment then looked up.

"You shouldn't have … but thanks!" Stepping back to let them enter, she waved her cocktail vaguely toward a doorway on the other side of the hall. "Just drop your coats in the first room there."

Dean turned around as the door closed and Alice tottered off into the crowd, looking around. People were everywhere, filling the rooms and spilling out into the halls, holding drinks and talking loudly above the music, currently featuring a band he vaguely remembered wearing too-small tee shirts in fluorescent colours. He turned back to the small dark room and helped Lisa with her coat, pulling his off and leaving it there as well. The heating was up on high and with the press of people, the house felt very warm.

He took a deep breath as he followed Lisa back out into the living room, realising that he didn't recognise most of the crowd there. They seemed to be early thirties to mid-forties, their attire almost uniform, the men in pants or jeans, rollnecks or button-downs; the women in the raciest dresses they'd been able to find, he thought, watching two walk in front of them, a blonde in a white mini that clung to every inch and a woman with short, dark hair in something that looked like liquid gold, painted on.

"Do you know any of these people?" he muttered to Lisa, as they inched their way through the packed room.

"Not really," she admitted, slipping her hand into his. "With the new classes I'm teaching, I haven't had a chance to go around and meet everyone." She stopped when they reached the other side of the room, looking around. "Let's get a drink and see if we can find Sid."

"Yeah." Dean followed her to the long table that was serving as a bar. "That'll be exciting," he added, half under his breath.

"Dean! Lisa! Over here!" Sid found them. Dean looked over in the direction of his voice and saw him waving wildly from beside the stereo. His wife, Nancy, wore a fitted cocktail dress, in a shade of red that Ferrari had made popular. He lifted a hand and gave him a small wave back.

"Well, I found Sid," he said to Lisa as she handed him a glass of whiskey. "He's over there."

"Okay, let's mingle." Lisa grinned at him and touched the side of her wine glass gently to his glass. "To us."

He took a sip, his initial assessment of the Chamberlains rising slightly as the taste of good whiskey hit his tongue. Not as good as the Blue, but better than the rotgut Bobby favoured.

Lisa led the way over to their neighbours, heads turning as she passed through the packed room, Dean noticed as he followed her. The men were frankly appreciative. The women less so, he thought cynically. He shook his head, oblivious to the looks that followed him, husbands fortunately so captivated by Lisa that they didn't notice where their wives were looking.

"So, ready for a new year?" Sid grinned at him. He forced himself to smile and nod. It was a party, goddammit, and the last thing he needed was to think about what a new year meant.

"As I'll ever be." Dean looked at his glass. There was a little under an inch in it and he had the idea he should be making it last a bit longer, but it was only nine, and it looked to be a long night. He tossed it back and held up the glass.

"Just going to get a refill, be right back," he said to Sid.

* * *

><p>He was on his way back, his glass half-full this time, when the song came on, an unexpected gem in the shuffle. <em>When A Man Loves A Woman<em>, Percy Sledge. This one he could cope with.

"Sid, can you hold this?" Dean passed his glass to Sid, and slipped his arm around Lisa.

"Wanna dance?" he asked her softly.

"To this?" She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, slow dance." He held out his hand. She took it, ducking her head to hide the smile that curved her lips.

Half the couples in the room had started dancing, and someone had dimmed the lights. He led her through the crush to where there was a bit more room, and slid his arm around her waist.

"When I imagined this, this isn't quite what I had in mind," she murmured against his skin. He looked down at her.

"You imagined this?"

"Well," she said, looking up at him. "I thought it'd be nice."

His mouth lifted on one side. "I thought you liked the romantic stuff? Can't get much more romantic than this." He moved slowly around, singing along softly. Lisa started to giggle helplessly.

"What?" Dean looked at her indignantly. "Now you're laughing at me?"

"No, not _at_ you." She lifted her face. "It's just … can we do this again to something else?"

"Sure." He bent and kissed her. "When we get home, your call."

* * *

><p>Sliding her arms around his neck, letting him pull her close, Lisa wondered if she could bottle this feeling and keep it forever. The song was old, and melancholy, but it was romantic, and he was singing along to it, she thought, feeling herself flush hot and cold as his lips grazed the side of her neck, still moving with the words.<p>

_When a man loves a woman, he'll spend his very last dime  
>Tryin' to hold on to what he needs.<em>

They were moving in a slow circle, feet shuffling together, and for a moment, she felt like the world had disappeared. She was warm and she felt safe … more than safe, she felt as if she'd reached a place where she belonged, where everything would always be alright and all the things she'd worried about, all the things that'd kept her up in the night, were gone, banished because of the man who was holding her. She wanted to look up at him, see the expression on his face, in his eyes, but she didn't want to break the spell.

_He'd give up all his comforts, and sleep out in the rain,  
>If she said, baby, that's the way it's gonna be.<em>

He swung her around a little, and she looked up at him, seeing him smile. He started to sing the next line then faltered, the words dying away as he lifted his head and looked over hers, his hold on her loosening. She felt his throat move as he swallowed.

_Well, this man loves you, woman.  
>I gave you everything I have,<br>Tryin' to hold on to your heartless love.  
>Baby, please don't treat me bad<em>.

The slight shiver that ran through him vibrated against her, and she asked, "Hey, you okay?"

He seemed to freeze for a fractional second, then he looked down and smiled, pulling her close again, his cheek resting against her hair. "Yeah, I'm fine," he muttered.

_When a man loves a woman, down deep in his soul,  
>She can bring him such misery.<br>If she is playin' him for a fool, he's the last one to know.  
>Lovin' eyes can never see.<em>

Letting her head rest against his shoulder, Lisa wondered what'd just happened. He'd gone from happy, she'd thought, happy and flirting and letting her laugh at him, to closed off in the space of a heartbeat.

_When a man loves a woman, he can do her no wrong,  
>He can never want some other girl.<em>

His exhale was harsh, audible even over the music. They moved together, her arms tightening around him a little more as she felt the light-heartedness between them vanish, something that felt more like sadness seeping from him. Another flashback of his old life? His brother's unknown fate? She didn't know.

_Yes, when a man loves a woman – I know exactly how he feels,  
>'Cause baby, baby, you mean the world to me.<br>_

The song ended and Dean straightened, putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her out of the crowd and back to Sid. She watched him take the glass of whiskey from their neighbour and toss it back, downing the half-glass in two swallows. He glanced at her glass as she picked it up, and nodded back to the bar.

"You want anything? I'll be back in a minute."

She shook her head, turning from him as Nancy leaned closer to her. "You two looked cute out there," Nancy told her in a low voice.

The comment helped to push the doubt away, and Lisa smiled at her.

* * *

><p>Dean looked at the press around the makeshift bar and kept walking, leaving his glass on a side table and turning for the kitchen. No one paid him much attention as he opened the door and stepped outside, crossing the brick-paved patio to stand in the freezing cold, out of sight of the windows.<p>

He wasn't sure how he could forgotten the exact lyrics to the damned song, but the second they'd come back, he hadn't been able to stop himself from feeling the cut of them. Didn't seem to matter that it wasn't real, that he'd told himself that, that she'd proved it. Didn't seem to matter that he was here, surrounded by people he didn't know and clinging to the idea of trying to do something right.

He turned and looked back at the house, back at the lit windows and the people moving inside, talking, laughing, all of them knowing what they were doing there, knowing they belonged there.

He didn't. But he didn't belong anywhere, anymore.

"Penny for them," a female voice said behind him and he turned around, seeing a blonde standing there, wrapped in a three-quarter fur coat. She seemed vaguely familiar.

"It's Dean, right?" she said, talking a step closer. "We met on Halloween."

A memory of a witch with long, curling blonde hair came back to him and he nodded. The witch who loved werewolves.

"Yeah, right, uh –" he said, searching the memory for a name. "Um, Anne?"

"Anne-Marie," she told him. "You don't like parties?"

"Uh, got a bit warm in there."

"The conversations give me a headache," she said, glancing back at the windows. "All those upwardly mobile plans and discussions of the best day-care centres." She gave an exaggerated shiver and rolled her eyes. "You don't seem too interested in following that beaten path."

It wasn't exactly a question, and he could feel her lack of interest in the answer. Whether she'd seen him come out, or had been out here on her own anyway, he knew what she was interested in.

"I'm pretty happy where I am," he answered, his gaze steady on hers.

"Not a risk taker?" She smiled challengingly at him, her tone condescending.

"No," he told her. "I don't risk anything important to me."

"What a shame."

He shrugged that off and turned away from her, walking back to the house.

"If you do change your mind, you know where I am," she called after him and he crossed the patio and opened the back door without responding. It might've been flattering if it hadn't been so damned apparent that most of the come-ons, blatant and subtle, he'd had lately were more from boredom than anything else.

The heat and noise hit him in equal measures as he closed the door behind him, and walked back through the kitchen and into the living room. The table holding the alcohol wasn't as packed and he grabbed the nearest bottle and poured himself a glass, looking around the room as he downed a third of it. Lisa and Nancy were dancing together to something he didn't recognise and Sid was leaning against the wall, staring into his glass. He walked across the room.

"Hey," Sid said, looking up and smiling. "Thought I was gonna have escort the two prettiest women here home on my own."

"Got too hot in here," Dean offered in response. "You okay?"

"Me? Yeah." Sid nodded. "Yeah, no, I'm good. Fine."

Dean looked more closely at him and around the room, seeing a couple of empty armchairs in one corner. "Let's go take a load off, man."

Sid allowed himself to be pushed out of the main crowd, sitting down as Dean took the other armchair.

"What's going on?"

For a moment, Sid looked around the room, his expression drawn. "Got the test results back. In the mail," he said in a low voice. "I don't want to bring everyone down, not tonight, not here."

Test results, Dean thought. A conversation he'd had last month with Sid came back to him. Fertility tests. Both having them. He nodded.

"You wanna get a beer tomorrow?" he asked, swallowing a little at the thought. Sid wouldn't be looking the way he was if the news had been good.

"Yeah," Sid said, looking at him then turning away. "Uh, thanks."

"No problem," Dean said. He'd seen the shine in the other man's eyes before Sid had turned away. Very bad, maybe, he thought. "Look, if there's nothing you can do, then there's nothing you can do, right?"

"Right," Sid allowed cautiously.

"So maybe we should just get loaded tonight and worry about tomorrow when we wake up?"

It surprised a small laugh from the man. "Sounds like a plan, you know."

"Yeah, I think they got tequila sitting over there. Everyone else is too chickenshit to drink it, let's knock it over," Dean said, getting to his feet. Sid would be feeling no pain after a couple of shots, he thought. He wouldn't let him have much more than that.

* * *

><p>Lisa watched Dean lead Sid over to the bar. "I think Dean's attempting to get Sid wasted," she told Nancy.<p>

Looking around, Nancy smiled. "Good, he needs it."

"Why?"

Nancy shook her head. "Not a conversation for tonight, but we had some bad news. I'll be glad if Dean can take his mind off it for a few hours."

She started dancing again, and Lisa joined her, glancing every now and then at the two men. Dean had snagged the bottle and they were back in the corner, drinking and talking. Mostly drinking, she thought with a faint frown.

"What about you two, anyway?" Nancy asked, dragging her attention back.

"Uh, oh, you know, we're fine," Lisa told her. "One day at a time, you know –"

The other woman laughed. "Oh, come on, Lisa, you might be able to fool a lot of people, but not me," she said. "You're practically on the ceiling tonight. You're in love."

She smiled in spite of herself, looking away. "Yeah."

"And? Do I need to start looking around for a good dress for a wedding?" Nancy prodded, one brow arched.

"Oh, look, it's – we're getting to know each other," Lisa said, shaking her head. "That's not – we'll see how we go, we've got plenty of time."

Nancy's expression changed. "Is that your decision or something you have to wait for?"

"Um, both, I suppose," Lisa said, looking down at the floor, losing the beat. "But you know, it's only been six months, and well, he lost his brother, so I don't want to rush anything."

"But you do know how he feels, right?"

"Uh, yeah, sort of," she hedged. "He hasn't actually said anything about the future, and you know, I'm … I'm, uh, that's fine."

She felt the other woman looking more closely at her, and smiled widely back, grateful as the song got more energetic and she could spin away more or less naturally.

He hadn't said anything, aside from the occasional vague references to a future they hadn't talked about. It was fine, she thought, flicking a glance at Nancy and glad to see her involved in the music and apparently content to let the conversation go. She wasn't about to push him into something that he wasn't ready for, but at the same time, she could feel her impatience, distant at the moment, but slowly building. She knew what she wanted. Knew it with a solid confidence that she'd never felt before, had hardly been able to imagine before. She wanted that future that felt close enough to touch, wanted to have it in her hands.

He was full of contradictions. Sometimes, he was old-fashioned, about looking after her, about the way they did things. Other times, he seemed to never think of what would come next, what might come next, if they stayed together. She didn't know how he felt, she admitted to herself, her brows drawing together as she ducked her head to hide the expression. He was there. His actions seemed to be loving, caring … wanting. But he didn't say anything.

* * *

><p>Dean glanced at his watch. Eleven-thirty. He was finding it hard to believe that with an abundance of decent alcohol and a houseful of people, the time was crawling and he was more than ready to go home.<p>

"Y-you know, Dean," Sid said, sending a gusting blast of tequila-scented breath into his face as they sat in the armchairs and looked at the crowd. Most of the women were dancing, some of the men, but not that many. "You-you know how many of these women want to get some of you?"

Dean turned his head and took a breath of fresher air. Sid was on his fourth shot and that was all he was getting, he decided.

"Yeah, uh, that's enough for you, Sid," he said, moving the bottle from the table between them to the shelf on the other side of his armchair.

"I don't get it, man." His neighbour slumped back in the chair. "What're they lookin' for?"

Dean glanced at him and back at the crowd. "I dunno," he said. "Five minutes of something different?"

"Five minutes …" Sid snorted, spilling a little tequila from his glass. "Not a five-minute man. Wha' happened to romance? To – you know – wanting someone forever?"

Smiling slightly, Dean shrugged. "Maybe that's a hard gig for some people?"

"Yeah," Sid considered that, his chin dropping to his chest and his eyelids drooping. "Hard gig when things go south, no matter what you do."

Dean looked over at him. "Hey, you make a promise, you keep it. It's not rocket science."

Sid looked up at him, his eyes slightly unfocussed. "You're right. Y'know that? Tha's right."

"Damned straight."

"Dam' straight." Sid nodded and lifted his glass, tossing back the contents in a single swallow. He stared fixedly ahead for a moment then let the glass fall, and Dean leaned over and retrieved it.

"I lov'd Nance, from the min'te I met her, you know?"

"Yeah, man, you told me," Dean said, watching his profile. High school and college and moving around the country together, chasing his jobs and hers. Apple-pie, he remarked silently to his brother. All the way. "You guys really stuck together."

"We did," Sid confirmed. "We do. She's … geez, you know, I still find it hard to believe she loves me. It's a – a – a fucking miracle, man."

He didn't know what to say to that.

Sid turned in the chair, leaning on the arm and looked at him. "Y-you-you are a good guy, Dean," he said, taking in a deep breath and looking past Dean for a long moment. "You know that? A good guy. Good friend."

Dean smiled and nodded, recognising the boozy affection for what it was. He didn't think Sid would have the same opinion if he knew anything about him, but he never would. He patted the man's shoulder awkwardly and Sid let out a long sigh, slumping back into the chair.

* * *

><p>Lisa and Nancy walked over to them a little before midnight. Nancy perching herself on Sid's lap, her arms sliding around him as he leaned forward and hugged her. She looked over Sid's head to Dean.<p>

"Thanks," she said softly.

He shook his head, letting Lisa pull him up from the chair. "He's a good man."

"I know he is," she said.

"Come on, it's almost time," Lisa said, tugging at his hand. On the other side of the room, someone had dimmed the lights further, a few lamps providing pools of gold in the near-darkness and a flashlight beam lit up the large wall clock on the wall, showing the steady progression of the second hand as it ticked its way toward the turn of the new year.

He stood with his arms around Lisa, looking down at her as she watched the clock and counted with the crowd. She was smiling and animated, the glass of champagne in her hand tilting a little as she concentrated on the countdown. She looked relaxed and happy, he thought, glancing up at the clock as the room started to chant.

"Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Ten."

Sam had been down in the pit for seven months. Seventy years in Hell's time.

"Nine. Eight. Seven. Six."

He wasn't going to be able to get him out. Wasn't going to be able to do anything but try and live the life his brother had thought he'd wanted.

"Five. Four."

A life he wasn't sure he could live. Not and remain himself.

"Three. Two. ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

Lisa looked up at him and he smiled, bending to kiss her, lifting her a little off the floor. This was it. This was all there would ever be. Her arm was around his neck, her body pressed hard against the length of his, and he could feel the mix of arousal and emptiness, conflicting inside of him.

"Happy New Year," he murmured against her cheek as he drew back a little.

She was looking at him, her dark-brown eyes searching his. "It'll be a good year, for us, won't it?" she asked him.

He nodded, ducking his head till his cheek slid alongside hers. He couldn't say it out loud, but he'd do his best to make it a good year for them.

* * *

><p>Lisa wobbled along the pavement on heels she hadn't spent enough time in, her arm wrapped around the man beside her, warm in her coat and under his arm, draped over her shoulder, barely able to feel her legs and feet. A few glasses of champagne and she felt slightly tipsy, a tiny bit giggly, safe and secure and protected.<p>

"It's good – here – isn't it?" she asked Dean, leaning out a little to look up at him and feeling a heel slip sideways. His arm tightened around her as he felt the slip too, and kept her upright.

"Yeah, it's good," he replied, his gaze on the pavement.

"And we're good," she pressed, slowing as he did to turn into their front gate. "You and me and Ben … together … we're good, aren't we?"

"The best," he told her, making sure they both made it up the porch steps. "Lise, tell Katie I'll run her home."

"It's only a few blocks …" Lisa turned around and look at him.

"It's getting colder," he said, reaching past her to unlock the door and pushing her through it. "I'll feel better."

"Kay."

* * *

><p>A little snow had fallen since midnight, not much; it was too dry and too cold. But it helped provide some grip, crunching softly underfoot. The temperature had dropped severely though.<p>

As Lisa went up the stairs and into the house, Dean went back down the stairs and opened the garage, getting into the truck and starting the engine. Three blocks or not, he would feel better about Katie getting home safely if he took her.

He saw her slip past the rear of the truck and waited as she opened the passenger door and get in, then reversed down the drive, thinking he'd have to salt the steps, path and driveway in the morning, the incongruity of using rock salt for what it was sold for making his mouth twist up derisively.

"How was the party?" Katie asked when they turned onto the street in the direction of her house. She was once again muffled head to foot in thick winter clothing.

"Alright," he said, watching the road. "How come you didn't have plans tonight?"

"I got grounded last week for staying out too late," she told him matter-of-factly.

"Huh."

He made the turn into her street, and she looked at him. "So, uh, are you Ben's real dad?"

He hadn't seen that coming and he didn't know what to say. "Uh, no."

"Ben told me you are," Katie said. "I knew he was lying."

"Uh –"

"Oh, not in a bad way," she said quickly, turning in the seat. "I mean, he just wants to believe it, you know?"

"Yeah, uh –"

"That's me," Katie said, pointing to a tidy two-storey with a large glowing fibreglass Santa on the front lawn. "My dad loves that thing, can you imagine?"

Dean blinked at the glowing effigy as he pulled into the driveway. He was going to have to have a talk with Ben, about the whole thing. Sometime.

"Thanks for the ride, beat freezing my ass off," Katie said, opening the door and sliding out with a wave.

"No problem."

The passenger door slammed shut and he watched her run across the lawn to the steps at the front of the house and climb them. The porch light came on and he shifted to reverse, backing out and turning around.

He'd found it hard to believe when he'd seen the boy and talked to him a little. But Lisa had been clear. Being a father was still something that he didn't really think of himself as. A provider, yeah. A protector, sure. But, in his mind, a father was something else. Something different.

* * *

><p>Coming back into the house from the garage, he found Lisa standing at the shelves in the living room, looking through her CDs. She found the one she wanted and put it on the stereo, turning down the volume. The lights were off, the room lit by a few candles, creating an atmosphere of intimacy.<p>

"Do I still get that dance?" she asked him, turning around to smile at him. "I thought this was a bit more like you."

Dean gave her a one-sided smile when he heard the opening bars, it wasn't a song he thought much of. He remembered Sam's disbelieving snort of laughter when he'd told him that Bon Jovi rocked – on occasion – and he realised now that neither of them really got what it was that hit him with music. It didn't matter, he decided. He could see in her face that she thought he liked it and he wasn't about kick a fuss over one song. It was slow enough and nowhere near as painful as Percy's.

"You're right," he said, walking over to her as she held out her hand. "Uh, much more like me."

_This romeo is bleeding__ b__ut you can't see his blood__  
>It's nothing but some feelings<em>_ t__hat this old dog kicked up__  
><em>  
>She put her arms around him, leaning against his chest. He heard her quiet exhale as they danced, felt her relax within the circle of his arms. The lyrics were still too close to the bone, he thought, but it wasn't a favourite and it wasn't one he thought of when memory came back.<p>

_It's been raining since you left me__, n__ow I'm drowning in the flood__  
>You see I've always been a fighter<em>_ b__ut without you I give up_

They danced slowly around the living room, pressed close together. How long did it take to get to know someone well enough to love them, he wondered absently. How long before the day-to-day situations and the shared memories and the time together formed something that let that knowledge become essential?

_What I'd give to run my fingers through your hair,_

_To touch your lips, to hold you near  
>When you say your prayers try to understand,<em>

_I've made mistakes, I'm just a man_

He drew in a breath as a memory returned, struggling against it for a moment then letting it fill him.

"_Sam told me about Lisa and Ben," _she'd said, smiling slightly at him, the sunlight glittering off her hair, her feet bare and in the water.

"_Sam talks too damned much." _He'd sat a little behind her, looking at the water as it rose and fell over the rocks that formed the bed of the river.

"_Were you disappointed?"_

"_Yeah. It was a few months before I went to Hell. And I was thinking a lot about what I'd done here, what I wanted to do."_

"_What you were leaving behind?"_

He remembered how he'd smiled ruefully at that. He didn't know how she knew him better than he knew himself._ "Especially that."_

"_You're free of Hell now, Dean. You could go back, pick up again." _

"_No. Not my life. Never will be."_

"_Never say never."_

"_Unlikely then." _He'd leaned on his elbow, looking at her, wondering why she was interested in what'd happened in Cicero.

"_Did you love her?"_

_"No. I wanted what she had, I wanted what she offered to me, a family and a life that had no monsters."_

"_That could turn into love."_

"_Could it? I thought love was about the person, not about the lifestyle."_

They'd been in Colorado, not far from Castle Rock, waiting for Bobby to get back to them on a possible demon trail. She'd found them and given Sam a book he'd been looking for, and he'd walked with her down to the river, talking about anything, talking about everything. There hadn't been a need to hide anything from her because she'd known most of what had happened to them. Had been a part of some of it.

He wondered now if she could be right, about being here, staying here long enough for the slow-growing familiarity to turn into something more. He'd been dubious then. He'd barely known Lisa when he'd gone back to see her and they'd been drawn into the changeling job. The only reason he'd gone back had been for the memories of the sex they'd had. Bendy, he'd told Sam. A good antidote to the fear he'd been trying to ignore then.

He hadn't known her much better when they'd left. And when he'd gone to see her, after the thing with the Whore, he hadn't been sure why. He'd wanted someone to know that he'd still been alive, someone to care. And the woman he'd wanted to see, to say goodbye to, hadn't been around.

_And I know when I die, you'll be on my mind__  
>And I'll love you - always<em>

The song ended and they stopped moving, Lisa looking up at him, her eyes soft and shining. He shook his memories off, forcing his attention back to the present.

"Any new year resolutions?" Lisa asked him.

He shook his head, letting her go and turning away. "Sets you up for failure, I think."

Getting a glass from the bureau, he poured himself a whiskey, sitting down next to her on the sofa, lifting his arm to settle it around her shoulders when she curled up close. "What about you? No, uh, things to get done, changes to make?"

"Lots." Lisa looked at the ceiling, comfortably cushioned against his chest and arm. "I'd like the classes to get to full time this year. I don't think that's really a resolution though."

"No, sounds more like a plan," he agreed. In his experience, fate made a mockery of every resolution anyone tried to make. It was like a fucking challenge.

Lisa sat up, turning a little to face him. "Dean …"

"Mmm …?"

He opened his eyes, filled with a sudden awareness that something had changed; he didn't know quite what. He tilted his head to look down at her, feeling his heart skip a beat as he took in the seriousness of her expression.

"I love you."

Time slid away from him, doubling back, another moment taking over, those words spoken in darkness and shocking him into stillness. He stared at Lisa and tried to separate the past from the present, not knowing what to say, feeling an unspoken but growing pressure against him with every second that passed without him saying anything at all.

That pressure told him what she wanted him to say, what she wanted to hear. But he couldn't. Not to make her feel good, not to keep the peace. He couldn't lie like that. He looked away, and he heard her sharp intake of breath as he set the glass down on the low table and kept his gaze on the low-burning fire in the hearth.

"Lise, I can't … I care about you, I want to be with you but …"

* * *

><p>In the second after she'd told him, she'd known. Shifting backwards along the sofa a little, she looked away, her throat closing up. She hadn't meant to push, hadn't meant to say it but it'd felt right – and for her, it was the truth.<p>

"Uh, no, it's fine – I know. I'm sorry, that wasn't – it wasn't –" She got up abruptly taking two steps toward the stairs and stopping, then slowly turning back to him. "I didn't say it because I expected an answer, Dean," she told him. "I just wanted to tell you, that's all."

They both knew it was a lie. But it was a lie that made it possible to keep going, she thought unhappily. A lie that meant that it wasn't going to be over right this minute. The thought tightened her chest.

"Lise." Dean stood up, taking a step toward her.

Shaking her head, she took a step back. In another minute, the tears that were pricking at the back of her eyes would spill over and then she'd be having this conversation with her eyes looking like a raccoon's. She didn't want to add that humiliation to the way she was already feeling.

"Happy New Year, Dean." Turning fast, she headed for the stairs.

The heels tripped her up the first step and she stopped, pulling them off and walking fast with them held in one hand. It seemed impossible to believe that she'd gone from a euphoria she hadn't even imagined to be possible to the point of almost forcing them into a break up in a matter of seconds. _We've got plenty of time_, she'd told Nancy, not two hours ago. Plenty of time, there was no need to rush and she'd known, she'd known he wasn't ready for anything more than what they were doing right now. Why had she said it like that?

She reached the bedroom and tossed the shoes in the direction of the closet, walking into the bathroom and closing the door. She leaned on the sink and looked at herself in the mirror.

_You wanted to know_, she thought, staring into her own eyes. _You wanted to know what he felt._

Opening a drawer, she pulled out the make-up wipes and grabbed a handful of tissues, wiping off her make-up and rubbing her face then turning on the taps and washing until her skin was smarting. Well, now she knew.

He didn't.

She felt for the handtowel and dried her skin more carefully, looking back in the mirror. Maybe she'd taken him by surprise, she thought, feeling the reach and hating it, but unable to help herself. Maybe he did but he wasn't ready to admit it.

Maybe he didn't and that was something she was going to have to accept.

She'd said the words to two other men in the last ten years, but both times had been in response to them saying it to her first. Neither relationship had lasted more than a year and a half, and she didn't know now why she'd thought she'd loved them. It hadn't felt like this, hadn't had the certainty she felt about the man she was living with now. That brought a small, strangled snort. A certainty that wasn't certain at all.

Looking down at the sink, she shivered. She was in love with him. He gave her all that she'd wanted, all that she'd needed. She'd said it because she wanted him to know, know that about her. She hadn't considered what might come after.


	9. Chapter 9 February 2011

**Chapter 9 February 2011**

* * *

><p><em><strong>January 1, 2011<strong>_

Dean looked at the stairs, shoulders slumping. "Dammit."

He sat on the sofa, and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. Was he supposed to lie? What the hell should he have said?

He'd known for a while that although he didn't have the best idea of what love was, what he felt for Lisa wasn't it. He cared for her; he'd lay down his life to protect her and Ben; he liked being here, some of the time … most of the time, he told himself. He liked being with her. He wanted her. And sometimes he needed her, her comfort and the way she looked at him, the way he could be close to her, feel human. But none of those things got close to the emotions he'd buried.

Picking up his glass, he swirled the amber liquid around in it and drank a mouthful, the fire in the liquor sliding down his throat without warming him. She didn't know him, he thought uncomfortably. Didn't know what he'd done, the events that had twisted and changed him. Didn't know who he was, down where he lived and breathed. And he couldn't tell her those things, couldn't show them to her. There was no context he could put that into that she could understand. It would just be a horror story.

He finished the whiskey in the glass, getting to his feet and moving restlessly around the room. Whatever it was that Lisa thought she loved, it wasn't him. Some idea of him, maybe. Some idea of someone else, maybe, someone with his face who was trying hard to be something he wasn't sure he could ever be.

A Dean Winchester who didn't really exist, just a guy with a past he could hardly speak about, a guy who didn't really know what he was doing here. A guy who'd made a promise and was trying to keep it.

He knew Lisa better than she would ever know him. The certainty of that thought filled him, tempered by the knowledge that, some of the time, at least, she kept things back, didn't tell him everything. Maybe those were things she felt uncomfortable with, guilty about or ashamed of. He didn't know. But he had a finely honed radar for hearing what wasn't said, what was skirted around, when he listened to people. The idea that she worried about the things she'd done, in comparison to the things he kept hidden, brought a strangled half-laugh.

There wasn't anything he could do to fix this, he thought tiredly. He couldn't lie. He couldn't tell her he felt something he didn't. And if that meant he lost her, lost Ben and the life he was trying to fit into, then he'd have to suck that up.

He checked the house, the locks and wards and put his glass in the sink. Walking slowly up the stairs, he opened the bedroom door quietly and got undressed, letting his clothes fall on the floor. He eased up the covers and slid beneath them. On the other side of the bed, Lisa lay still and silent. She wasn't sleeping, he knew that. Her breathing was regular but forced.

"Lisa. Do you want me to leave?"

The sound of her breathing stopped. He waited. After an endless moment, he heard her take a deep breath.

"Do you want to leave?" her voice was low and cold.

"No. I don't."

"I don't want you to leave."

Lying next to her, he waited for her to say something else, trying to think of a way to get them past this moment. Nothing came to mind that wouldn't result in a lot more pain, and explanations he couldn't give her.

They'd been happy and contented just a couple of hours ago, he thought, bewildered by how much had changed and how quickly. How could being in a relationship be so goddamned difficult?

The silence in the room stretched out, deep and welling with what they were thinking but not speaking about. It was more than an hour later, he thought, when he heard her breathing change, becoming unforced and peaceful. She was asleep. But the cold coming from her side of the bed was still there. He got up quietly, picked up his pillow and returned to the living room.

* * *

><p><em><strong>January 4, 2011<strong>_

_Pick up milk and bread. Please._

Dean looked at the post-it note on the fridge and sighed, unpeeling it and putting it in his wallet as he grabbed his toolbox from the kitchen table. Lisa had barely spoken to him in the last four days, most of her communications through notes like this one or through Ben. He didn't know if he should stay, despite what she'd said. This wasn't working.

He turned at the sound behind him, seeing Ben standing in the kitchen doorway, a scowl on his face. Ben was caught in between them, not understanding the way his mother would walk out of the room if he entered, or the wariness in his voice when he spoke to her directly. He didn't know what, if anything, Lisa had told her son about what'd happened. He wasn't sure he wanted to explain it to the boy either.

"What's on your mind, Ben?" he asked Ben, hearing his reluctance in his voice.

"What happened?" Ben blurted out. "Why aren't you and Mom happy anymore?"

Dragging in a deep breath, Dean looked down at the toolbox in his hand. Lisa obviously hadn't said anything to him. Which left it up to him.

"Uh, it's –" he hesitated, too aware he wanted to tell him the truth, too aware that might not be the right thing to do. "It's, uh, complicated."

"Don't treat me like a little kid," Ben said, his scowl deepening. "Something happened. Something bad and Mom won't say anything."

Shaking his head, Dean put the toolbox back on the table, rubbing a hand over his face. "Alright," he said, gesturing to the table. "Siddown."

The boy walked into the kitchen and dropped into a chair at the table, staring at him belligerently. Dean sat down on the other side, and looked back at him. "Your mom," he said. "Uh, we're … uh, we're not in exactly the same place, uh, in how we're feeling."

He could feel his palms dampening and resisted the impulse to wipe them off on his jeans. He did acknowledge he'd rather face a nest of vamps than have the conversation he was having.

"What's that mean?" Ben asked, his tone a little less aggressive.

"Well," he said, looking away. "She's … uh … ready for more than I am."

"More what?"

Good question, Dean thought, ducking his head. "More, uh …"

"You mean she loves you, but you don't love her?" Ben asked, and Dean sagged back against the chair.

"Uh, yeah."

"Why?"

Another good question, he thought, unable to answer it. "I don't know," he told the boy. "It's not something I can just do."

"You care about her, don't you?" Ben asked and Dean nodded.

"Yeah, of course I do," he said. "But that's not the same thing."

If it was, he wouldn't be in this situation. "Your mom told me how she feels, Ben," he said slowly. "And I couldn't tell her I felt the same and it hurt her."

"Why can't you just love her?" Ben asked, his frustration too evident in his tone. "Or tell her you do?"

Dean looked away, then back at him, his expression troubled. "You think I should lie about something like that to your mom?"

"No … but you do like her. I know you do. You kiss and everything," Ben reasoned.

For a moment, a bubble of laughter filled Dean's throat at the boy's black and white view.

"Yeah, I do like her, Ben, I like her a lot. I care about her, and you, a lot," he tried to explain. "It's, uh, not the same thing. It's not the same as wanting to be with someone forever."

Ben frowned. "You mean like wanting to get married and have more kids?"

"Yeah, I guess. Like that."

"But _why_ not? Why don't you want that?"

He could see that the boy couldn't see what the problem was. He remembered Katie's admission, Ben's lies to her and to himself about the situation, realising Ben wanted that. A father. His own father.

"I don't know." Dean shook his head, pushing that aside as he tried to find a way to make Ben understand. "I don't know that I _don't_ want it, Ben. I'm just not sure that I _do_ want it. It's not how I feel about your mom."

_Sam's in Hell and I have to save him. I have to find some way of saving him. I can't pretend that he's not, and get married and have kids and forget about him._ The unspoken words rolled through his mind and even that wasn't the whole problem. He didn't know if he wanted that life, the life Lisa wanted. The life Ben wanted. He didn't feel the way he had … not even like he'd felt about Cassie, he recognised a little bleakly. Driven and wanting and needing and … thinking about a future.

Looking back, he acknowledged the truth of Cassie's words, when they'd said goodbye for the second time. _I'm a realist, Dean, and I don't see a lot of hope for us_. She'd nailed it, right there and then, even when he hadn't wanted to believe it. His life, what he wanted and needed to do, were not compatible with hers. And in the last five years, he'd called her … twice? Getting her voicemail one of those times. What sort of love was that?

Caring about someone; he understood. Worrying about them, caring about what happened to them, protecting them. Those were all things he understood. Loving someone, that was different. Giving everything he was, showing everything he was … wanting the same from someone else … pain blossomed deep down and he shoved it away.

He looked at Ben, seeing his frustration, feeling it in himself, a different source but no less aggravating.

"I just can't, Ben," he said helplessly. "Okay? It's not something I can give your mom."

"I don't understand –"

"I know," Dean cut him off, as gently as he could. "I can't explain it. But I can't just make it happen, you understand?"

It was plain from the boy's expression that he didn't, not entirely. He would, Dean thought, watching him get to his feet and walk out of the kitchen. One day, he would.

* * *

><p><em><strong>January 8, 2011<strong>_

Lisa leaned over the sink in the kitchen, staring down at the suds-filled water and feeling the tension headache building at the base of her neck. This wasn't working, she thought, a stab of pain closing her throat.

She closed her eyes, tipping her head back to ease the pain there. And it wasn't his fault, she admitted to herself finally.

He'd come into their bedroom, and asked her if she'd wanted him to leave and she'd told him no. And he'd said that he didn't want leave. It'd left her in a limbo of wanting something she couldn't have and that'd brought its own anger and doubts. She'd had her share of relationships, had known that sometimes one person felt more than the other. Still, she'd blamed Dean, blamed him for not wanting what she wanted. For not loving her the way she loved him. And none of it had helped. In the most rational part of herself, she knew it wasn't his problem. It was hers.

Every night for the last week she'd gone to bed alone and woken up alone, because he'd spent the nights sleeping on the couch. She knew why. She hadn't been able to help the chill radiating out from her when he came near and he'd turned away, sensibly preferring not to freeze to death in the night. He wasn't angry about it, she knew. He didn't blame her for her reactions. He was just giving her the time and space to work out what she wanted. And she was still in exactly the same place as she'd been seven days ago. Angry and unhappy and knowing she had no right to be.

He hadn't tricked or told her he could give her the moon. He'd been himself, as open as it was possible for him to be. She'd known that. She knew it. And she knew she was laying this on him because she wanted something he couldn't or wouldn't give … like a child having a tantrum, she acknowledged slowly.

Turning away from the sink, she dried her hands and went to the coffee pot, pouring herself a cup and adding sugar and stirring it absently before carrying it to the table.

As a way to change a man's mind, she thought, sitting down, it was a guaranteed failure. He was the man of her dreams, but she had the deeply uncomfortable feeling that she'd proved herself to be a nightmare for him.

Her hands cradled the warmth of the cup, staring at the fridge with its pictures held on by novelty magnets and school reports and dental appointments and shopping lists haphazardly covering the white enamel.

It wasn't fair, she knew. She was in love with someone and she had every right to be disappointed that he didn't return that feeling … but at the same time, she could feel the childishness of the feeling … the 'I want' of it … with no consideration for anyone else. It didn't make her feel any better that of the two of them, Dean was behaving in a mature, adult way about this and she was making it impossible to get through or past.

_You convinced yourself that he loved you_, that small, snide voice in her head told her. _Convinced yourself and jumped in without looking carefully_.

Yeah, she admitted, she had. The night, the conversation with Nancy, the way he'd held her and sung to her, a little off-key but sincerely … it hadn't been hard to see the next step along their relationship journey and try to force into happening more quickly.

He didn't want to leave. She reminded herself of that. Or, at least, he hadn't wanted to a week ago. And he was still here. That had to count for something. But she was only had two options and she needed to choose between them. Dragging it out wasn't helping anyone.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at the cup sitting between her hands. She could apologise, try to explain and then let them get on with it, as it had been, enjoying his company day by day and putting all thoughts of their future out of her head.

Or, she could tell him goodbye. Give up her hopes and dreams and look for someone else. There wasn't a third choice. Remaining in this mess was only going to drive him away. He didn't deserve the dog-house and she thought she knew him well enough to know he would leave, if it went on too long.

No easy answers but she'd learned that nothing worthwhile was easy anyway. It hadn't been easy to raise Ben on her own. Hadn't been easy to build her small business back into the black. Hadn't been easy to pass on men she'd known would provide and love her, but at the cost of her not feeling the same way.

Dean was gentle. He was passionate and satisfying lover. He took on responsibilities and shouldered them without comment or whining and he would never let her down, never try to hurt her. He protective of her and Ben, so much so that she'd never felt safer. That hadn't changed. Was it enough? Letting another deep sigh, she knew that for most women, most of her friends, it would've more than enough, more than they'd ever dreamed of. It was more than she'd dreamed of. She had everything he could give her … he just wasn't in love. And she didn't know why, exactly, that part felt so damned important compared to the rest. Was it a security thing, she wondered in frustration? Something she felt would tie him to them, keep him there, no matter what?

It might've been that expectation. She knew that life didn't work that way. It wasn't a romance novel. And that wasn't the issue, not really. What she needed to work out was if she could live with him, knowing that, like the old Meatloaf song, two out of three wasn't bad?

_More to the point_, she thought to herself, _can you live without him, now that he's become a part of your life? Can you say that being without him is better for you than being with him?_

She knew, from past experience, how long it would take her to get over him, if she let him go again. And this time, he might not come back. He might move on, thinking she would do better without him.

She sipped her coffee. There wasn't an easy answer. There was still a part of her that demanded that she be loved, that she couldn't accept anything less.

But it wasn't the part of her that would mourn his leaving, the part that would feel his absence in the mornings, waking up with him, feeling his arms around her, his mouth on hers, turning her on, making love to her in the way he had, as if her pleasure was the only thing he cared about; the part that would be bereft at the loss of a partner, a friend, a father to Ben, someone she could depend on. That part would take a long time to heal. And every day she would have to know she'd chosen the pain for herself.

Dean got home a little after six, taking his coat off and hanging it on the hook, looking around the house. He walked into the kitchen for a beer and stopped in the doorway as he saw Lisa sitting at the table.

She turned to look at him and got to her feet, walking the few steps that separated them and stopping. He couldn't work out the expression on her face and he waited, feeling his nerves jump a little at her silence.

"I'm sorry," she said, tilting her head back and looking into his eyes.

It wasn't what he was expecting.

"I had no right to get angry with you. You were honest. That's not something you should be punished for," she continued, her gaze dropping to her hands, twisting around each other. "I do want you to stay here, with me and Ben."

He let out his breath. "I'm sorry too."

Lisa shook her head. "Don't be, you have nothing to be sorry about."

"This isn't what you want, Lise. It's not what you deserve." He tried to meet her eyes, ducking his head. "You deserve to have someone who can give you everything you want."

She looked up, smiling crookedly at him. "That's the point. You do give me what I want, almost every single thing I want, and I-I-I don't you to leave. I don't want to lose you or what we have."

He looked at her unhappily. "Lisa …"

She put her hand against his face, and leaned toward him, brushing his mouth with her own. "Just tell me honestly … do you want to stay?"

"Yeah, I want to stay," he said softly, closing his eyes. "I want to be with you and Ben."

That was the truth. He didn't want to leave. There was nothing out there, no other alternative, except loneliness and pain.

* * *

><p><em><strong>February 5, 2011<strong>_

The short days were lengthening slowly, but snow still covered the ground here and there, and February's icy winds still blew around the eaves, rattling the bare branches in the garden.

Lisa sat curled up in the armchair, the quilt wrapped around her, staring out at the bleak streetscape. She felt the same bleakness inside. Everything that they'd gradually built up, their way of being together, had been torn apart. Dean was treating her with kid gloves again, as he had when he'd first appeared on her doorstep. She missed the easy banter with him, she missed him singing in the shower, she missed … him … feeling comfortable around her.

She didn't know how to put the pieces back together, and suspected that it would take time, as it had the first time. Time to trust. Time to believe.

The headache that had been with her for the last two days gave a nasty throb, this time accompanied by a roil of nausea and she pulled the quilt more closely around her, trying to get warmer.

She heard the front door open and close as Dean and Ben returned. She looked up as they came into the room.

"Hey, Mom," Ben said, veering into the kitchen, to get something to eat.

"Hey, how was the game?" She looked at Dean.

"Good – got a good team, this ye–"

"GOOD!" Ben yelled from the kitchen. Lisa's mouth lifted at the yell, despite the fact that it'd drilled her skull painfully.

Dean rolled his eyes, and turned to follow Ben into the kitchen. She leaned back and sighed. At least that hadn't been destroyed, she thought with relief. If anything, the last couple of weeks had brought them closer.

She wanted to get up, discard the quilt on the chair and follow them into the kitchen, join in. But she felt cold and empty inside, and instead she buried deeper into the warm folds of the quilt, closing her eyes against the brightness of the light that slanted into the room.

* * *

><p>"Lise, you okay?" Dean's voice was soft, deep, like black velvet next to her ear. She smiled slightly.<p>

"Mmmhmmm."

"Come on, got some hot food here, you should get up, have something to eat."

She felt his hands, tugging and trying to peel the quilt away from her, and she tightened her grip on it, too tired to tell him that she needed it, that she was cold, chilled, frozen to the bone.

"Mmm .. cold," she whispered.

"Lise? Lisa?" Dean's voice got louder, but he sounded further away. She curled up tightly.

"What's wrong with Mom, Dean?"

"I don't know, Ben. I think I need to get her upstairs. Can you turn off the stove?"

She felt arms around her, lifting her. The brighter light of the hallway hit her eyes and she moaned, burying her face in the quilt. She wanted to tell him that she just needed to get out of the light and sleep. She needed to sleep.

* * *

><p>Dean looked up at the low-wattage bulb and down at the woman in his arms worriedly. He went up the stairs quickly, and carried her into the bedroom. The bed was still made up, and he swore softly. He managed to grab a corner of the bedspread and quilt beneath it between two fingers, dragging them back with Lisa still held in his arms.<p>

Laying her on the bed, he drew the covers over her, resting the back of his hand against her forehead for a moment. Her skin felt clammy and cold. He could barely see any of her, she was so swaddled in the quilt from the living room, but he could see the bedclothes quivering, and he pulled down them away from her face until he could see the reason. Shivering helplessly, her eyes screwed, her teeth were chattering like castanets.

_Fever can burn hot and cold, in waves. Check the temperature first_, his father's voice said from distant memory and he pulled the covers over her again, turning for the bathroom.

The bathroom cabinet held all sorts of pharmaceuticals but no thermometer and he lef the cabinet open, ducking to look through the drawers. The thermometer was in the second one and he grabbed it, hurrying across the bedroom, and lifting Lisa into a half-sitting position, holding her still with one arm as he slipped the thermometer into the corner of her mouth, feeling it slide under her tongue. It'd been a long, long time since he'd cared for his brother like this, he thought. He was relieved that he remembered the drill. After a minute, he took it out and looked at it. 101.2 F. That was high.

Easing her back down, he watched her frown and try to roll over, away from him, caught in the quilt she had around her. He freed the edges gently and got up, returning to the bathroom to check the cabinet for something to take the fever down. He found ibuprofen and grabbed the box, reading the label as he padded back to the bedroom. _Must be taken with food._

_Great_.

He sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing out the covers and letting his fingertips brush over her temple. Her skin was hot now. But she was still shivering violently. He leaned close to her, lifting an eyelid. In the lamp's soft light, the pupil was huge, nearly covering the warm brown iris.

"Lise? Lisa, you hear me?" Dean shook her gently. "Lise?"

Her eyes remained closed. In the skin at the side of her neck, he could see her pulse, a little fast, maybe but steady.

_Dammit_.

He didn't know whether he should take her to the hospital or just get some of the pills into her and see how she went. When it came to Ben, Lisa made the medical decisions. Neither of them had been sick in the last eight months, not like this. He wasn't even sure where to find the details of her medical insurance, although he guessed he'd find enough in her purse to get her seen.

She was breathing alright and her heartrate was steady, he told himself. He'd try to get her to eat something and take the pills and make a decision if they didn't work. He hurried down the stairs. Ben sat in the kitchen, staring at the table.

"How's Mom?" he asked as soon as Dean came in.

"I don't know, Ben. She's got a fever. She needs to eat something so that I can give her some medicine to take the fever down." He looked at the cooling pan of sausage casserole. No way he could get her to eat that right now. He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and dished out a serving for Ben, setting it in front of the boy.

"No point you starving either, Ben. Eat up."

He looked through the cupboards, one after another. _Where the hell was the soup?_

He found a can of tomato soup in the pantry, and poured it into a clean pan, turning on the burner and waiting for it to heat. The minutes ticked away on the kitchen clock, and he began to worry about Lisa being upstairs by herself.

"Ben, can you keep an eye on the soup, turn it off as soon as it starts to boil, okay?"

Ben nodded. Dean ran back up the stairs and into the bedroom. Lisa lay in exactly the same position as when he'd left, curled onto her right side. He sat on the bed and felt through the quilt. She was still shivering.

He pulled off his boots and slid under the covers with her, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close.

"Come on Lise, warm up," he muttered. "Food's on the way, then something to take the fever away. Then rest, okay, baby?"

"Dean!" Ben's voice yelled from downstairs. "Soup's ready."

Dean swore under his breath, carefully uncoiling himself from around her. He padded out of the room and downstairs in his socks, wondering if he was doing the right thing here.

"Thanks, Ben. Look, I need to stay with your mom for a while; can you look after yourself tonight? Get into your pyjamas, brush your teeth, take yourself to bed, the whole bit?"

Ben looked at him, offended. "Dean, I'm almost twelve!"

Dean gave a shaky laugh. "Yeah, sorry, of course you are. I don't know where my head's at, man."

Ben nodded seriously. "I understand, you're worried about Mom."

"Yeah, I am." Understatement, he thought.

He poured the soup into a mug, added a spoon and started to walk out of the kitchen. "Uh … Ben, TV off at nine, okay? Still a school day tomorrow."

"Yeah, I got it. Look after Mom." Ben put his empty bowl into the sink and wandered away to the living room.

* * *

><p>Dean went up the stairs, trying not to spill the hot soup. In the bedroom, he put the mug down on the nightstand, and realised that he was going to have unwind Lisa completely from her quilt. Pushing back the bed covers, he eased her up against him, half-sitting and half-leaning on him. The quilt from downstairs was wrapped around her upper body but not, he noticed, her legs and he pulled and tugged it free, throwing it over the top of the covers and pulling the layers up until she was mostly covered. He picked up the mug, tasting it for heat. It'd cooled enough, he thought. He transferred the mug to his other hand, and picked up the spoon.<p>

At first, she seemed completely unconscious, the soup dribbling out after he'd put the spoon in, her head falling forward. He kept trying and after a few minutes, she started swallowing. When the soup was half-gone, she opened her eyes slightly, one hand rising unsteadily to hold the cup and guide it to her mouth. He felt a wash of relief, putting the spoon back on the nightstand and scooping up the two pills. She swallowed them, washing them down with the last mouthful of soup and muttered something he couldn't catch.

Setting the mug back on the nightstand, he eased her down in the bed again, and got to his feet, stripping his clothes fast and leaving them in a pile on the floor. He slid down beside her, managing to ease her further down the bed as well. Enfolding her in his arms, he shifted his position until the length of his body was close against her. Under the bedcovers, her skin felt hot and dry, but the shivers grew less as his body heat seeped into her.

"Come on, Lise, warm up, baby," he murmured softly, his cheek next to hers. "Warm up and get better."

* * *

><p>He'd fallen asleep, he realised, looking blearily around the room, the lamp still on and the clock showing twelve-ten. Under the covers that were fully over them both and with Lisa's warmth burning into him, he was boiling hot and he registered slowly that her body temperature seemed to have risen, heat radiating from her against his skin.<p>

She pulled away from him, pushing against his chest petulantly and trying to roll away. He released her, propping himself on his elbow to watch her. As she moved out of the shadow he was throwing from the lamp behind him, he saw that her hair and skin were soaked in sweat.

He rolled out of the bed and headed again for the bathroom, feeling the cool air chill the sweat on his body. Hers or his, he wondered vaguely. Taking a face cloth from the shower, he soaked it in cold water and walked fast back to the bedroom.

In the middle of the bed, Lisa turned from side to side, her legs caught up in the covers, her face twisting up with whatever it was she was dreaming, he thought.

"No, no, I didn't mean it. I take it – take it – back," she mumbled. "Dean? Dean!"

He sat down next to her, catching her hands as she thrashed against the restraint of the bed linen. "It's okay, Lise, I'm here, okay? I'm here."

He held both her hands in one of his, using the other to sponge the cold cloth over her face. She struggled against his grip, her eyes moving rapidly beneath the closed lids, her breathing strenuous. He moved the cloth to her neck and chest, feeling the heat emanating from her and the uncoordinated movements slowed, then stopped until she was lying still as he laid the cloth over her forehead, her eyes opening slightly.

"Dean?" she murmured, one arm shading her eyes from the lamp as he lay down beside her.

"Lise? I'm here." He touched her cheek, relieved to feel it cooler. "It's okay; you've just got a fever, maybe the flu. It's going to be okay."

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice a little slurred. "Can we take it back? Can we pretend I never said it? Please?"

"Lise, you awake?" He looked more closely at her. Her eyes were half closed, but between the lids, he could see that her pupils were still expanded. "You sleeping?"

"Like a do-over, when we were kids. Just pretend it never happened, Dean," she muttered, a frown drawing her brows together. "I didn't mean it. I thought … I thought … please, don't leave me … please?"

She relaxed suddenly, her arm falling limply between them, her breath gusting out and settling into a quieter pattern. He lifted the cloth, wiping it gently over her closed eyes, her cheeks and neck. The coolness was gone from it now; it had absorbed the heat from her skin.

He looked down at her, stroking the hair back from her face, off her neck. _Oh, fuck, Lise_, he thought wearily. _What have I done to you?_

She'd told him she loved him. But how could she? Really? She didn't know what he'd done, what he'd seen, what pieces were smashed, what pieces were missing. Was it possible to love someone without knowing them, without knowing their flaws as well as their strengths?

He didn't know. He didn't think so. It wasn't fair on either of them to show just some parts and leave the rest in darkness, pretend it didn't exist. It was, he knew, a part of who he was. Like it or not.

He looked down again at Lisa. She wasn't a part of his life, and she would never understand the things that had happened in his life, the things he'd seen, had done, had felt. He didn't think it was even possible to explain it to her. There was a part of him that knew she didn't want to know too much about his past. About the monsters and the way he'd grown up. How the hell would she deal with the really bad things, all the memories he'd walled down deep and tried to bury. Only one person in his life had understood them, but she'd known him, he thought unwillingly. Known him better sometimes than he knew himself. Lisa didn't.

He'd told Sam. Once. Not everything. But he'd let some of it out, unable to hold it back, unable to bear the thought that Sam might look to him, not knowing that he wasn't a hero, not knowing that he was tainted. And it hadn't changed anything. Sam had seen what he'd wanted him to see. No more big brother. Just another broken man.

He looked around the bedroom, drawing in a deeper breath. His time with angels and demons was over. That was hard to accept as well. He could do without them; without the demands that'd been on him and the constant fear and anger and pain at the way they'd been manipulated, pushed and dragged and forced into choices that weren't choices at all. He knew it wasn't over, that the battle was still going on, that men and women were still being used – or possessed – and what he was doing here was hiding from it all, pretending it didn't exist, not for him. There was a part of him that lay drowning in shame at that knowledge, even though he knew he couldn't go back.

But …

In the last few months, he'd felt a slow dawning recognition, something he thought was only possible with the distancing of his past, being able to see it not in tangled and always present memories, in events that moved too quickly to figure out, but with a longer view. He'd been sick and tired of the responsibility that'd enfolded him like a concrete overcoat, that had never let him rest and feel comfort, that had taken everyone he'd cared about …everyone he'd loved. Despite that or maybe even because of it, he knew he'd felt completely alive then. Alive and mortal and doing something that had given him a sense of who he was, even when he'd been lost to everything else. And he knew that here, that feeling, that … life, was disappearing from his grasp. Here, he felt half-asleep, all the time. He felt … dormant.

He felt as if he was in a dream … a long, long dream where feeling alive, every sense and nerve screaming on high alert, was an unknown concept. His thoughts and feeling were muted, muffled and distorted. And, he thought uncomfortably, he was losing his sense of who he was, down deep, where he lived and breathed, where it was just Dean, not hunter or brother, not son or saviour or servant of God. That sense was dissolving under who he was trying to be … someone ordinary, someone normal, a partner, a father, a responsible citizen, someone who didn't know anything about what lived out there in the dark.

He couldn't be both. One was going to have to go.

Lisa moaned softly beside him, drawing his attention back to where he was and what he was doing. He laid the back of his fingers against her skin, and felt the heat rising again. Pushing the covers aside, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet and went back to the bathroom, taking the cloth, soaking it again in cold water.

* * *

><p>The fever broke near dawn. Dean shifted on the bed and put his hand against the side of Lisa's face, relief spreading through him as he felt how cool it was.<p>

He slipped out of the bed, turning to draw the covers over her again, tucking them in against her sides. He hadn't slept much through the night, alternating long periods of introspection with repeated trips to the bathroom to refresh the cloth with cool water, bathing her face and throat, trying to keep the heat down. He rubbed his hand over his face now, looking down at her, trying to make sense of the thoughts and memories that had plagued him throughout the night.

The only certainty that was left was that he needed to make a decision. He couldn't keep living in the here and now, trying to keep one foot in his old life and the other in the new. Not for himself and not for the woman and child he was with.

He'd thought he had committed himself to this life, this promise, but he could see now he hadn't. Not really. Not fully. Commitment meant looking at the past and discarding what he couldn't share, even if that meant cutting out a part of himself. Commitment meant looking to the future and giving Lisa some certainty that he was here to stay, that she could count on him to be there for her. It meant giving Ben the father he wanted. It meant letting go of who he was and turning himself into who they needed him to be.


	10. Chapter 10 March 2011

**Chapter 10 March 2011**

* * *

><p>"Dean?"<p>

He looked up from the computer's screen. "Yeah?"

"I think there's a leak in the roof," Lisa's voice drifted down from upstairs.

"Uh, yeah –" he called back, his gaze dropping back to the open search windows in front of him. There wasn't anything there he could call suspicious. Not enough to maybe pick up the phone and call Bobby about. Just a generalised feeling of unease that'd prompted him to start looking through the national papers for … weirdness.

Lisa appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down. "Oh. Sorry, were you doing something?"

Shutting down the computer, he shook his head. "No, not really."

He got to his feet and started up the staircase. "Where's the leak?"

"Just by the end of the hall," Lisa said, backing up as he got close.

There'd been a late snowstorm last week, he thought as he followed her along the upstairs hall. Might've moved a couple of the shingles. He looked up when they reached the end and saw the damp patch on the ceiling.

"Can you fix it?"

"If it's just a couple of the shingles, yeah," he told her, backing up the hallway and reaching up for the roof access ladder. Pulling it down, he climbed up and looked around. There were two telltale points of daylight showing the problem.

"Yeah," he said as he came back down.

"Thanks." Lisa smiled at him. "I know we should call the agent, but they always take forever to get anyone out."

He nodded, pushing the ladder back into the ceiling recess and turning for the stairs. It'd taken the agent three days to find a plumber when the downstairs bath drain had blocked up, and he'd ended up fixing the problem himself.

* * *

><p>Dean levered out the broken nail and knocked the shingle back into place next to its neighbours, driving in a new nail to fix it in place. He slid the small hardwood wedge free of the shingle above and hammered a couple more nails in to tie them together.<p>

March's weather hadn't been able to make up its mind. Blustery rain storms had been interspersing cold, sunny days and icy nights for the last two weeks, and looking around from the roof's vantage, he could see another line of grey creeping along the horizon, foretelling another storm on the way. The sun was out but it was cold, a penetrating breeze finding its way down his neck as he turned to pick up his tools.

He could see into most of the yards along the quiet street, and he watched absently as his neighbours went about their usual weekend chores. Sid was doing something with a pair of long shears, haphazardly cutting off branches from the bushes that lined the fence, looking like his mind was anything but the job he was doing. Russell was sitting on his patio, a bottle of beer by one elbow as he bent over the newspaper. He was holding a pencil and Dean figured he was picking likely prospects for the local track.

On the other side of the street, Mr Martello was shovelling some dark, crumbling substance from a wheelbarrow onto his flowerbeds, stopping intermittently to pull out a huge handkerchief from his pocket and wipe it over his face and neck. Just pulling out of the driveway next to their house, Bob and his nine-year old son rang the bells of their bikes in unison and waved randomly, turning right to get to the park on the other side of the low hill. Bob coached the local teams and played softball right through the season.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Dean picked up the tool box and eased his way down the roof's slope to where the ladder was propped against it. Russell'd had a heart attack at forty, and had been convinced by his wife to retire early. He figured Russell would either blow their savings at the track or have a stroke from rising blood pressure caused by too much time and not enough to fill it. Sid's bad news had been a very low sperm count, and they were looking into adoption. Martello's fifteen-year old daughter had been arrested twice for shop-lifting, charges including resisting arrest after she'd tried to punch one of the cops. Bob was having affairs with half the mothers of the teams he coached, Sid had confided to him a few weeks ago.

Happy families.

He moved the tool box to the edge of the roof and picked it up as he took a couple of rungs down. None of it was surprising, exactly. He'd spent too much time interviewing people under stressful conditions to consider that anyone really had a postcard-perfect life. All of it had made him wonder how long it would take, living here, for him to follow a similar path.

He retracted the ladder and carried it and the tools back to the garage, putting them away distractedly, looking around the tidy space.

Lisa had told him she was fine with whatever he could give her. The edges didn't match up with what'd come out when she'd been sick, and it didn't match up with what she'd said on New Year's either. He wasn't certain that she hadn't thought it all through and changed her mind. He wasn't sure that she had. The idea that she might've been lying, or just not feeling comfortable enough to trust him with the truth was bothering him more than he was ready to look at. Wanting something you couldn't have didn't sit well as a long term solution. He knew that well enough.

In the back of his mind, he wondered if a normal life was just that. Lying about the things you couldn't have so that everyone would feel like things were just fine. He didn't think he could do that, not indefinitely.

A week ago, something else had come up. A low grade feeling that something wasn't quite right. It didn't have anything to do with Lisa or Ben, he'd thought, though he couldn't discount that entirely. The nightmares about Sam had morphed into nightmares about other things and his nightly drinking sessions hadn't really slowed down that much, the darkest hours of the night filled with memories of the past, some of them good, most of them not, all of them reminding him that if he was going to commit to this life, he had to find a way to bury his past, bury it deep and for good.

_Sam, look – the three of us ... that's all we have ... and it's all I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man ... and without you or Dad ..._

He stopped at the doorway to the house, leaning against the frame as the memory returned, along with the feeling of desperation that had driven him to saying something that had been so deep inside to his brother. At the time, that was all he'd cared about, having his father and his brother, their presences close by to remind him that he was doing his job, that everything would be okay if he could just keep doing his job. Sam'd scared the crap out of him with his talk about sacrificing himself to Yellow Eyes if it meant killing the demon. He'd sounded so much like their father, it'd disoriented him, seeing them both, together, somehow, himself apart from that. Nothing was worth losing them. Nothing.

And he had anyway. John giving himself up to save him. Sam doing the same thing to save the world.

And he'd been left kneeling there in that cold boneyard. No more job. No more chances to not fail. He'd already done that.

He drew in a deep breath, forcing it into his chest, deep down into his lungs, feeling the tightness yield reluctantly. It was different now. Things had been different for a while, even before his brother had jumped in the hole. But it'd worked out the same way he'd been scared of back then. No road. Nothing he could quite imagine himself doing or being in this normal life he'd thought he'd wanted so much.

"Hey," Lisa said, pulling open the door and taking a step back when she saw him standing there. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," he said, hearing the bright lie. If she was lying to him about the way she felt, could he blame her, he wondered? Practically everything that came out of his mouth was some version of a truth that wasn't real. "Roof's fixed. Just a loose shingle."

"That's great," she said. "Uh, Beth called, she invited us for dinner tomorrow night."

His nod felt forced but Lisa didn't seem to notice.

"I told her it would have to be an early one, and she's fine about that," she continued, following him through the laundry, leaning against the washing machine as he washed his hands and dried them. "She, um, mentioned that it might be nice to do a joint summer holiday this year?"

"Uh huh?" He turned for the kitchen, deciding that a beer would help with this conversation.

"You know, maybe camping together for a couple of weeks," she said, stopping in the kitchen doorway as he retrieved a bottle from the fridge. "I mean, probably not actual camping, Steve's got that little cabin, up in Michigan, and it would be great for Ben."

"Uh huh." He knocked the top off and swallowed a mouthful, the cold fizz washing down his throat.

"You don't want to?"

"Uh," he said, shaking his head. "No, sure, it'd be good." He looked at her, seeing her forehead furrow a little with uncertainty and made an effort to inject some enthusiasm into his voice and expression. "Uh, when did they have in mind?"

"Probably July," Lisa said, taking a step closer to him. "I think – I thought – it'd be a fun trip for us."

"Yeah, it would," Dean said, putting the bottle down and going to her. He put his arms around her and dropped a kiss on her hair. "Fishing and stuff, right?"

"Right," she said, smiling up at him, the doubts gone. "Roasting marshmallows, singing campfire songs –"

"Yeah, okay," he said, letting her go and picking up his beer.

"Well, you won't be singing, but the rest of us can," she said.

"Hey!"

"C'mon, flat doesn't even describe it," she told him, backing out the door. "But that doesn't let you out of the rest."

He watched her walk away, his smile fading. Two weeks in a cabin with her sister's family. He pushed the idea aside and wondered if Ben had even the slightest interest in camping and fishing. He could teach him a few things, he decided. Maybe even get away on a kind of a bonding hike or something.

* * *

><p>Lisa watched Dean discreetly as she ate. He was sitting opposite her, eating steadily, and giving every appearance of listening to the conversation, but she had the feeling that most of him was someplace else.<p>

That'd been happening more often in the last month, she thought. He would smile and nod and answer whatever was asked of him, but it seemed like he wasn't really there. Not all of him, at least.

And she couldn't ask him about it. Somehow, without being able to nail exactly how it'd happened, she'd found herself asking him less and less. She wasn't sure if she was afraid to bring up a conversation she didn't want to hear, or if she was worried about crossing the invisible but tangible lines that had appeared when she'd told him she would take whatever he could give, lines that meant that there were some things, more things, that they didn't talk about. At all.

They were almost back to where they'd been, before New Year's. No more strained silences, or at least, not so many of them. Where, before, they'd been comfortable with each other, there was some discomfort now, she thought, staring at her plate. Even at the most intimate moments, those moments she'd used to treasure, she could feel a wariness in him. Or maybe that'd always been there.

"Oh, and speaking of people we hardly ever see anymore, Lise, you remember Janice, don't you?" Beth's question jerked her back to the conversation, her sister looking at her quizzically.

A high school friend of Beth's, Lisa thought, dragging out a memory. Tall and exceptional looking, with a carrot-red mass of curly hair. "Uh, yeah."

"I caught up with her last week," Beth said, shaking her head as she cut up her food into tiny pieces on her plate. "She's been with that Eric character for the past four years, and you know, she said she's still teaching and he's still going on the road, three or four months a year. They haven't even gotten married."

Frowning, Lisa tried to remember who the 'Eric character' might've been. She had a vague memory of a nice-looking guy with long, dark hair, standing with Janice at a few of her sister's get-togethers, two or three years ago. A musician, she thought Janice had said.

"Huh," she said, feeling heat rising in her neck as a sense of familiarity hit with the replay of her sister's comment. "Maybe they're just happy the way they are."

"Well, you know, normally, I'd agree," Beth told her with a sharp sniff that suggested otherwise. "_Normally_, I'd say well, so long as they're happy, then what's the problem? I mean, it's not like in this day and age anyone _has_ to get married."

She could hear the 'but' in Beth's voice and she looked down at her plate, feeling Dean's gaze on her, determined not to show anything that might raise questions she couldn't answer later on.

"But," Beth said, chewing and swallowing her mouthful. "She told me she's not. Happy, I mean. They don't talk about the future, she said. In fact, she doesn't even really know if they have a future."

"Hmm."

"There're a lot of guys out there who aren't prepared to make a decision," Steve interjected from the other end of the table. "You know, just 'go with the flow' and see what happens –"

"Which is all well and fine when you're in your twenties," Beth cut in. "But it's not fine when you have to start thinking about buying a home, or having a family, or putting down some roots."

"What did Janice actually say?" Lisa asked, cringing inwardly and hoping that wasn't showing on her face. She couldn't think of those things. She didn't want to think about them.

"She _says_ she's fine, you know," Beth said, lowering her voice for emphasis. "She says she loves him and she's happy with whatever he wants to do, but she didn't _look_ fine. And she wants a family now – my god, you should have seen her with 'Lissa, she was doting on her."

She gave a dramatic sigh, setting her knife and fork onto her plate with a slight clatter. "You know, she's always been into that feminine empowerment stuff, women's rights and so on, and I told her, well, there you are … you have the right to get whatever you want, but so does everyone else. And if what they want isn't what you want, where on earth does that leave you? I mean just wanting something to happen doesn't mean it will."

"I don't think the guy wants a family," Steve added. "I think he wants to stay footloose indefinitely, ready for anything better that might roll up. He's got it good right now, why should he change it?"

"I just don't know how she can live like that?" Beth shook her head as she got to her feet and picked up her plate, reaching for Lisa's at the same time. "No plan, not knowing anything for certain. I couldn't do it."

Getting to her feet, Lisa picked up Dean's empty plate and Steve's, her feet taking her around the table automatically as she tried to work out how much of this conversation Dean was absorbing – and if he was wondering if the topic had been raised deliberately.

* * *

><p>"Why is it so important to you anyway?" she asked Beth as she followed her out of the dining room into the kitchen. "You've got what you want."<p>

"It's not that," Beth said, setting the dishes down and turning on the hot tap to rinse them. "I just don't like to see people – otherwise reasonably intelligent people – kidding themselves until they're past the point of being able to get what they're looking for." She took the plates and cutlery from Lisa's hands. "I suppose I'm old-fashioned but don't you think life's too short to keep making believe that someone will change when it's clear they won't?"

"So you told her – what?" Lisa said, hearing the bite in her voice but unable to stop it. "That she should give up on him? Live alone and hope that someone else – the right someone else – will just come along?"

"No," Beth said, turning and looking at her in astonishment. "Of course not. I didn't say anything to her." She looked more closely at her sister. "Why are you upset about it?"

"I'm not," Lisa told her, turning away from that laser-focussed inspection. "I just think that people can make their own choices about what's right for them without having to be judged by everyone else."

"Was I judging her?" Beth asked, and Lisa felt her exasperation with her sister rise. "I thought I was just making conversation."

"You're always judging someone, Beth."

Beth looked at her, a frown marring the smoothness of her forehead for a moment. "Lise, I wasn't trying to make a comparison between you and Janice. I mean, you've only known Dean for a few months – but Janice has been waiting four years for this guy to give her some kind of sign that it's going to be permanent, and I don't think he ever will. I don't like to see anyone I care about unhappy."

"Maybe she thinks that being with him is worth even not getting everything she wanted."

"No security? No children? That's a steep price," Beth countered as she turned back to the sink and picked up the dishes. She opened the dishwasher and started to stack it, looking over her shoulder at Lisa.

"Are you worried about Dean?"

"No," Lisa said, trying to keep her voice firm. "Not in the slightest."

"Good."

* * *

><p>They pulled into the garage and Dean turned the key, the engine dying. "Lise, are you okay?"<p>

"Of course," she said, opening the door and getting out. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He watched her shut the passenger door and head for the house without waiting for a response.

The conversation at the dinner table had seemed pretty pointed to him, but Lisa had said that her sister was incapable of even seeing a comparison, let alone using anecdotal conversation to point one out. She'd told him that Beth was naturally inclined to judge everyone around her by herself and that was all. It didn't change the fact that Lisa was in a similar position to her sister's friend, he thought, getting out of the truck and closing the door. And it didn't change the fact that he couldn't give any more than he already was.

"_Do you want to stay with Mom and me?" _Ben had asked him, when Lisa had been recovering.

"_Yeah, I do,"_ he'd told the boy. _"I care about you guys."_

"_Are you going to stay? Forever?"_

That'd hit harder. _"Uh, I don't know,"_ he'd answered, trying to find a truthful way to explain that he couldn't promise that.

"_Why?"_ Ben had looked at him a little scornfully. _"Why don't you know?"_

"_Ben – it's not that easy."_ He'd been hedging and Ben had seen it.

"_Other people know,"_ Ben had argued. _"They just want to stay and they do."_

"_And sometimes that doesn't work out, right?"_ he'd countered uncomfortably. At least two of Ben's friends at school were caught up in their parents' divorces, he knew. _"I don't want to make a promise to you and your mom that I can't keep – and not because I don't want to keep it, but because I can't."_

"_I don't get it,"_ the boy had said, his gaze dropping.

"_Yeah,"_ he'd said. _"I don't really get it either."_

It wasn't just Sam, he knew, although that was a big part of it. And maybe that part would get less painful over time. It wasn't just his worry that something out of his past would come looking for him, put them into danger either, he thought, walking up the steps and into the house, and kneeling to pull off his boots by the door. That was another part of it, his reluctance – or discomfort – or unease with making plans for the future. All parts of it, not the whole answer.

Walking through the house, he stopped at the kitchen and pulled a beer from the fridge, looking around. He jumped a little as Lisa came in, tossing her purse on the counter and going to the cupboard for a glass. She filled it at the tap, turning to look at him.

"Katie's just taken off," she said, turning off the tap and drinking the water in a couple of big gulps. "Ben's in bed. I'm going to bed early too."

"Okay." He looked at her shoulders, hunching a little as she finished the glassful. He could make it right – make her feel better, he amended – if he told her what she wanted to hear … that he'd stay and they'd be happy and a family and … normal. He couldn't make the words come out and he had the feeling she knew that.

"'Night," she said, putting the glass in the sink and walking out without looking at him again.

"Yeah … night," he said softly, hearing her footsteps going up the stairs.

* * *

><p>The whiskey glass in his hand was half-full, almost forgotten as he stared at the screen. Open windows on it showed the newspaper reports for the last couple of weeks, nationally, and he'd been scouring them for the past two hours, looking for the little things that would tug at his internal alarms. There were a few. A church mysteriously burning to the ground in the middle of a Sunday service. The police had no idea why the doors and windows had been locked or how it was the fire even got started. Thirty-nine people had died. Putting the glass down, he reached for his pen, jotting the name of the town, the pertinent details and the date it happened. He opened a new search screen and typed in the date, adding key words to it and hitting enter.<p>

On the table under his hand, the notebook pages started to fill up and Dean looked down at the list of unexplained accidents and deaths, brows drawn together. Nearly every one of them had some kind of religious connection, he thought. Churches. Priests. Holy locations. Murder of the faithful. There were a bunch of pissed off angels still in Heaven.

_This is funny to you? You're living in a godless universe._

_And? What, you and the other kids just decided to throw an apocalypse while he was gone?_

_We're tired. We just want it to be over. We just want...paradise._

Raphael had been bitter then, he thought as the memory of the conversation with the archangel returned. How much more now, now that paradise was not on the table? Thirteen events in the last two weeks, just here, just in the US. He put the glass down again and widened his search criteria, eyes narrowing as the key words returned more hits from other countries.

A hundred and forty-four, give or take a few thousand for missed ones. Clicking on a report in Italy, the screen showed a church, or, he thought, what had been a church, now a mound of stone and glass and timber, lifeless limbs visible under the mass. He zoomed in on the photograph, adjusting the resolution. Ninety-three killed when a church collapsed without warning on the congregation. He moved the enlarged picture around, and stopped. Several police stood with rescue workers to one side of the ruins. A few feet from them, a woman was walking at the edge of the pile of stone blocks, her head bowed as she looked at something in her hand.

The photograph was black and white, low-resolution and grainy, but he knew it was her anyway, long hair held back in a braid, her face expressionless and concentrating fiercely on whatever she looking at. EMF, he thought vaguely, barely aware that his pulse had accelerated as he leaned closer to the screen, his hand had tightened around the glass in it. There was a sharp crack and the overpowering smell of spilt whiskey and he jerked back, looking at the shard of glass sticking out of his palm, the amber liquid spreading over the desk.

"Fuck," he said, pushing the mouse and keyboard back from the spill and getting to his feet. Grabbing a handful of tissues from the box at one end of the small computer desk, he threw them over the whiskey, and reached for a second handful to stop the blood trickling from his hand. He pulled out the long spear of glass and put it with the remains of the glass, mopping up the increased flow with more tissues and walking to the kitchen.

_Italy_. Somewhere in the middle, from the location given on the news item, which had cited the destruction of the church as possibly caused by an earthquake. The region was known for them. She wouldn't have been there if it'd been an earthquake, he thought, putting his hand under the flow of cold water and staring at the slice in his palm.

_Alive_. Hunting. In another country … he pressed hard on the cut as blood began to ooze out again. It wasn't like it was a surprise, he told himself, pulling the handtowel from the rail and wrapping it around his hand. Wasn't like he hadn't known that she'd made her choice and –

Cutting the thought off there, he turned away and walked up the stairs to the bathroom. He rinsed the cut off again in the sink and pulled a gauze pad and a roll of elasticised bandage from the cabinet, binding his hand awkwardly and tucking the loose end in under the wrapping.

He walked slowly back down the stairs, cleaning up the broken glass and wiping down the desk's top automatically, his gaze stopping on the photograph briefly before he reached out and shut the machine off.

There wasn't a point to what he was doing, he thought as he carried the bottle into the living room, turning off the lights as he went, leaving a single lamp on next to the armchair. Other people made commitments without knowing what lay ahead, without worrying about the future. He was never going to get what he wanted. He unscrewed the bottle's lid one-handed and took a mouthful from the neck, the fire in the liquor giving him some warmth.

Hoping for something that was never going to happen was something he'd been doing all his life and it was time he gave it up. Time he grew up, he thought, staring at the label of the whiskey bottle without seeing it. What he had, here, and now, was all he was going to get. And that was on him, to make it work – or put all of them out of the confusion and misery he'd created by being here and leave.

There was work to do out there. Maybe it was Heaven's finest all bent out of shape and pissed about the way things had turned out. Maybe it was just coincidence. He didn't know if he could do it alone, though. He took another pull from the bottle, letting that scenario play out in his mind's eye, criss-crossing the country, searching out the jobs, doing the research, no one to bounce ideas off. No one to celebrate with once the job was done. No one to notice if he was there or not. Once, he'd loved hunting on his own. He'd been young, dumb and full of his own strength, not ever counting the cost. And, he considered, he hadn't been alone, not really. His father, his brother, his friends, they'd all been alive, around somewhere and when he'd gotten tired of his own company, there'd always been a place to go.

It wasn't the same.

The alternative was what he'd promised Sam. A normal, apple-pie life. With a woman and a kid who, for whatever reasons, wanted him to be there. He didn't feel alive here. The job occupied his time and his hands, but not his mind. The relationships he'd built with Lisa and Ben were comforting and gave him peace, but not himself. The routine varied so little that he could look ahead through the years without difficulty, getting slower each year, more complacent, less vigilant. Was that such a damned bad thing, he wondered uneasily? Was it so damned bad to tell Lisa what she wanted to hear to make her happy? To tell Ben that he'd have a father?

He put the bottle down on the small table beside the chair and leaned back, closing his eyes. Everything cost something. He'd learned a long, long time ago that you could have anything you wanted, if you were prepared to sacrifice everything for it. He couldn't have what he wanted. No matter what he was willing to give up for it. He could have this – this life and all it would cost him was everything he'd been and everything he was.

* * *

><p><em><strong>One week later.<strong>_

It'd been raining solidly for two days.

The yard was sodden, the street's gutters were awash, driving to and from the job was a daily lottery of living and dying with people seemingly incapable of remembering the laws of physics, but, Dean thought as he watched yet another episode of the increasingly inexplicable and convoluted plotlines of Lisa's favourite show, at least the roof wasn't leaking.

"I can't believe they went back to 1977," Lisa said, turning off the set when the credits rolled.

"Huh?"

"You know, Jack and Kate – you know what? Never mind," she said, tossing the remote on the table and getting up to stretch. "Ugh, enough tv."

"You could probably go water skiing down the street," he suggested, glancing out the window.

"I hate it when it rains like this." Looking around the room indecisively, she stopped when she saw the pile of albums stacked on one shelf. Dean watched her walk over to them, gathering the armful and bringing them back to the sofa.

"Memory lane?" he asked.

Returning to the shelf, she picked up a decorative box, and pulled the lid off. "More like a rainy-day job," she told him, holding up a handful of loose photos. "These have been sitting here for ages, and I kept promising myself I'd go through them and get them into albums."

"Huh." Another aspect of normal life he hadn't considered. There were a few photos of him around the place now. Most of them were with Lisa and Ben, a few just with Ben, a couple just with Lisa, and one of him, framed and sitting on Lisa's nightstand. He wasn't sure why she'd taken it, and he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about it. It seemed odd to him to have a picture of someone you saw every day sitting next to the bed that you slept beside them in.

Bringing the box back, Lisa settled herself on the sofa and started sorting through the photos. Dean watched her, half-looking over her shoulder at the bright images that passed through her hands. Some of them she set in one pile, some in another. There were a lot of repeated shots, taken from different angles, and she spent some debating over which angle she liked best.

"That's Beth and me, in high school," she said, handing him a picture with two girls standing a little apart. Beth's attention to detail was evident even then, he decided, not a hair out of place, prim and very proper in a skirt of the correct length, her blouse pressed and crisp. Beside her, Lisa was in torn jeans, a cracked leather jacket a size or two too large for her, her hair streaked with neon green and hot pink. She looked much the same as she had when he'd met her, he thought. Her face was a little more rounded, vestiges of teenage puppy fat still there. Fifteen, maybe sixteen, he decided.

"Rebel," he said, smiling at her. She made a face.

"I told you I was looking for trouble when we met," she reminded him, taking the photo back and pulling out another one. "This is Ben's father."

He looked at the guy in the picture, taken in the bar where they'd met. He was tall and lean-looking, faded and grease-stained jeans over motorcycle boots and a tight-fitting black tee shirt with a Megadeth logo on the front. A narrow face, with a long, slightly curving scar marring one cheek and disappearing in a few days' worth of stubble. He couldn't see the guy's eyes, the lighting shadowing them.

"I'm not sure if I should keep this for Ben or not," Lisa admitted, looking from the photo to his face and back to the picture. "It seems wrong to not tell him about his father, but he was there and gone, and I don't think I ever even got his real name."

"You think Ben'd want to find him?" he asked, looking at her.

"I don't know," she said. "At the moment, he's not all that interested. But later on, maybe … I – it's not exactly the best life lesson for him."

No, Dean thought, it probably wasn't, but people made spur of the moment decisions all the time and life went on, most people figured out their crap as they went along. He'd done the same thing with her as this guy had, had his fun and moved on, never left a number, never called, hadn't even thought of her until nine years later. And then it hadn't been anything more than a desire to have another weekend like that first one, he hadn't remembered much about her otherwise.

If Ben had been his, he wondered, handing back the photo, what would've changed? He couldn't've stayed, he'd been on the road to Hell. He didn't know what he would've done.

"Keep it, I guess," he said to Lisa. "If he wants to know, later on, I can probably help him find the guy."

Looking down at the photo, Lisa said, "Maybe he won't want to find him. Now."

Dean felt a jolt slide through him. Now that he was here? Now that Ben had some kind of father figure who would stick around? He ducked his head and got to his feet, going to the kitchen for a beer. It was already too late to pretend that he hadn't had an impact on the kid. Ben took orders from him more easily than he did from his mother, not that he gave that many orders, but the boy was eager to please, quick to do whatever he was asked. At first, he'd thought that was his upbringing, it'd only dawned him more recently that Ben was doing his best because he wanted to make sure that he would stay.

Walking back to the living room, he felt a vague pinch of shame on the heels of his relief, when he saw Lisa going through another stack of photos. There were too many things he didn't know how to deal with when it came to the family he was pretending to be a part of. Trying to be a part of, he amended to himself, not sure if that was accurate either.

"Oh, wow, look at this," Lisa said, holding out a photo. It was an older one, he saw, of Ben, taken when he was maybe three or four years old. A shock of blond hair and a pugnacious expression as he waved a headless teddy bear at the camera.

"What happened to the bear's head?"

"The neighbour's dog got hold of it, and the two of them had a tug-of-war," Lisa said, smiling at the photo. "The dog kept the head, Ben slept with the body for the next year, until I finally convinced him that we could get another bear." She snorted a little. "Gave the day-care people fits when they saw it. They kept trying to sew new heads on, but he kept cutting them off."

The recollection made him smile. "Sam was like that, when he was little," he remembered. "Had to have the original or he'd pitch a hissy fit. One of his toys, I can't even remember what it was now, but he was playing near the car when Dad was changing the oil and it got covered in sump oil. You couldn't touch the damned thing without getting black but he wouldn't give it up. Dad put it in a plastic bag and he slept with it like that."

It'd taken him three months to get used to the continuous rustlings of that bag every night. Every time Sammy'd turned over, he'd woken, sure there was something in the room with them.

"You guys had some good times, didn't you?" Lisa asked, looking around at him.

"Yeah, we had some times," he agreed. He'd thought their childhood was mostly okay. Not all the time, and there were memories there he'd've just as soon forgotten completely, but they'd been kids and kids found ways to have fun, no matter what the circumstances.

"I can't really imagine you as a child," she teased him, and he lifted a brow, shrugging in acknowledgement. Maybe most of the time, he hadn't been, he thought. He remembered Missouri's comment and grinned slightly.

"I didn't look much like I do now," he told her.

"And you don't have any photos – at all?"

"I got a few," he admitted, wondering why he hadn't brought them out before now. If not to put around, then at least to show her that he'd had a childhood, hadn't just appeared at the age of nineteen in the bar where they'd met. "They're in the car."

"Get them!"

"Now?"

"What better time could there be?" Lisa asked, waving an explanatory hand at the windows. "Ben'll be home in a couple of hours, anyway. Come on, Dean, I have to see them."

"Uh, yeah, alright."

Getting to his feet, he walked out to the garage. The box was still at the back of the trunk. The occasional feeling he should pack everything up and move it into a secure storage unit still hadn't driven him to actually doing it. He wasn't looking at why.

The black car was sitting under the tarp and he walked around the back, pushing it up and out of the way. Unlocking the trunk, he lifted the false lid and propped it up, breathing in the smell of solvent and gun oil, the acrid odour of gunpowder and the sharp smells of the dried herbs. He should've brought her out here, he thought. Those were the smells of his childhood. Visceral scents that brought back a million memories of his father and his friends, sitting at tables, cleaning the guns, greasing the mechanisms of the crossbows, making up protection bags and listening to the hunters talking.

He closed his eyes, seeing Jim's kitchen, his father sitting in one chair, Jim and Caleb taking up two others. Sam'd been asleep, out on Jim's back porch and it was past his bedtime but his dad hadn't noticed that yet and he'd known if he kept quiet, he would be able to listen to them for a while longer. Mostly, they'd talked about people they knew, what they were doing, who was still alive. The conversation had veered around to hunts and the monsters they'd found and killed, sometimes to the people who hadn't survived, sometimes about the victims who'd been saved. Even back then, he'd known that the life was different. Too different to accommodate any kind of the normality that his brother had seemed to want. All of those men had raised him, he realised, leaning on the edge of the car's trunk. Hard men, used to making hard decisions, life and death decisions, and all of it had permeated him, sinking through his consciousness and into his bones, into his blood. He'd wanted, with every restless, yearning breath, to be just like them.

The box was still in the corner, at the back, and he grabbed the corners, pulling it out. He opened it and drew out the bundle of photos, not so many, shuffling through them and tucking them into a pocket. Closing the box, he left it in the trunk. There were other things in it, things that had belonged to his mother, or to his father. Things he wasn't ready to share or explain just yet. He held the lid up and laid the shotgun down, closing the false lid then the trunk lid with a soft click and wondering if he would ever want to share those things. The explanations for some of them would lead into territory he wasn't sure he could revisit. He turned for the door and walked back into the house.

* * *

><p>Sitting down on the sofa, he pulled the pictures out, and passed the small bundle to Lisa. There was a very small picture of his mother and him. He couldn't work how old he'd been, maybe four, maybe less. Her arms had been around him, both of them smiling into the camera. A picture of his father and mother, in front of the car, his father almost unrecognisable, clean-shaven and dressed in coveralls. There was another one of them together, someplace out of town, his father holding a cigarette in that one. One of Sammy at about six, with him and his father, sitting on the hood of the Impala. One of him sitting in an armchair, holding Sam. He didn't remember the early ones, not having them taken, but he dreamed about them sometimes, strange, disjointed dreams of the four of them together, his mother singing to his little brother, or reading to them both. The last one was of the four of them, the print cracked and darkened. His mother had been holding Sammy and he'd been standing next to her, John behind them. That one had been taken outside of the Lawrence house.<p>

Lisa looked up as she handed the pictures back to him. "Dean, we could get these restored, you know," she said quietly. "Get them framed, so they'd be protected. You could look at them every day –"

He shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

He couldn't answer that easily. They weren't for anyone else, not even for her and Ben, not to have out. They were the last things he had of his family, and he couldn't look at them every day, couldn't deal with the memories that rose when he did look at them. They were … private, he thought.

"They, uh," he floundered, trying to find a way to say that without it sounding that way. "They bring a lot of memories with them."

"Maybe you should look at those memories," she suggested diffidently. "Maybe that would help you to let go?"

_Let go of what_, he wondered? _His brother? His life? His past? Himself?_

"Yeah, sometime," he told her, slipping the pictures back into his pocket. It was a lie, he thought, with a flash of guilt. Another one.

"I'm sorry," Lisa said. "I'm not trying to push you into doing something you don't want to do."

"No. No, that's okay," he said, uncomfortably aware that's exactly what it'd felt like. "I mean, that's – it's okay."

"You looked happy," she offered tentatively. "Even in the later ones."

"I was, a lot of the time," he said, hearing the faint undertone of surprise in her voice. "Me and Sam and Dad, we did okay."

Was that a lie, he wondered? He'd been okay. His father had been driven, flogged by his memories and his fears, by his anger and doubt, drinking too much and not giving enough time to his sons. Sam'd been in danger, serious, life-threatening danger more times than he wanted to remember.

He remembered being at some school in some town … high school for him, grade school for his brother, too tired after a night helping his father with a haunting, standing in front of the class as the teacher had read out his five minute attempt at the homework they'd been given. He'd scratched it out before making Sam's breakfast and school lunch, his father gone to look up something else on the case. The teacher's voice had been thick with sarcasm and the class had laughed. It hadn't bothered him, so much, not the laughter, not the attempt to humiliate him … what had bugged him was that it'd been an easy assignment, and if he'd had the time, he would've nailed it. They didn't often have the time. He hadn't often had the time.

Looking up, he saw Lisa watching him and he gave her a smile, crooked but still a smile.

He couldn't tell her about that stuff, he realised slowly. He couldn't tell her about looking after Sammy, trying to do what he was supposed to in school, helping his father out … it sounded, in his head, like excuses, like some whining kid. She'd be sympathetic, he knew. Probably outraged on his behalf, and that wasn't what he wanted. The load was the load. He'd carried it and it'd changed some things in him, but he didn't need anyone feeling sorry for him.

"I don't think there's a perfect life," Lisa said, looking down at her stacks of photos. "We just get through somehow, however we can. There's nothing we can do to change the past, or undo any of the mistakes we've made."

She looked back at him. "I think it's what we do today and in the future that's more important."

_Maybe that was right_, he thought, as she turned away and began to sort through the piles again. _Maybe you had to forget the past. Just let it go._


End file.
